(David Shepardson | Reuters)Donald Trump shall grant naturalization for illegal immigrants if they join military forces
A Vatican critique of U.S, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is the latest international flare up involving the administration of President Donald Trump which has in recent years lashed out at insitution and allies in the world of security, health, trade, and now religion.
The Holy See said on Sept. 30 it had denied a request from Pompeo for an audience with Pope Francis.
It accused the Secretary of State of trying to drag the Catholic Church into the U.S. presidential election by denouncing its relations with China, Reuters news agency reported.
Remarks came from the two top diplomatic officials at the Vatican after Pompeo made an accusation against the Catholic Church.
These were made in an article and in a series of tweets this month of the church putting its “moral authority” at risk by renewing an agreement with China over the appointment of bishops.
The Vatican’s two top diplomats, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said Francis had declined a request from Pompeo for an audience, as the Pope avoids meeting politicians ahead of elections.
“Yes, he asked. But the Pope had already said clearly that political figures are not received in election periods. That is the reason,” Parolin said.
The Vatican’s two-year-old agreement with Beijing gives the Pope some say over the appointment of Chinese bishops and it was due to expire next month, but is expected to be renewed, Reuters said.
Pompeo was in Rome on Sept. 30 and due to meet Vatican officials the following day and had repeated denunciations of China’s record on religious freedom at an event hosted by the U.S. embassy to the Holy See.
The Guardian newspaper reported on the incident that the Italian news agency Ansa asked Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, if the U.S/ unilaterally organizing an event of religious freedom amounted to exploitation of the Pope in the run-up to the U.S. elections.
He replied: “Yes, that is precisely why the Pope will not meet American secretary of state Mike Pompeo.”.
The Reuters report said that Parolin and Gallagher both described Pompeo’s public criticism as a “surprise”, coming just before his planned visit.
“Normally when you’re preparing these visits between high-level officials, you negotiate the agenda for what you are going to talk about privately, confidentially. It’s one of the rules of diplomacy,” Gallagher said.
Pompeo launched a strong attack on religious persecution in China and called on the Vatican to stand up for religious freedom there, in an implicit criticism of Pope Francis’s rapprochement with Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than in China,” Pompeo said in his speech in Rome.
He cited China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims and other religious minorities, including Catholics, as well as the crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
“We must support those demanding freedom in our time.”
Pompeo addressed was at a conference on religious freedom organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican, and invoked the courage of Pope John Paul II in opposing Soviet Communism.
“May the church, and all those who know that we are ultimately accountable to God, be so bold in our time,” said Pompeo.
The Journal reported a “senior Vatican official” expressed irritation with Pompeo’s suggestion that the Holy See hadn’t been standing up for religious freedom in China.
“We speak about religious freedom to China all the time, but we do so in our own way,” the official said. He suggested that Pompeo’s speech was motivated by U.S. domestic politics: “He is clearly exploiting the issue of religious freedom in view of the election in November.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister, MK Omer Yankelevich, spoke on Tuesday at a special gathering of Jewish community leaders in Europe and addressed the rising antisemitism in Europe and across the world.
The conference, led by the European Jewish Association (EJA,) was chaired by Rabbi Menachem Margolin and attended by dozens of Jewish community leaders and organizations from across the continent, as well as by senior members of the European Parliament and the Director of European Commission Directorate for Security & Law enforcement.
Addressing the forum itself, Yankelevich pointed at unity as the most efficient way of combating antisemitism.
“This forum brings together community leaders, government representatives, and Jewish organizations. The only way to successfully combat the rise in antisemitism is to combine forces and work together,” Yankelevich said as her opening remarks.
She then continued to point at the antisemitic instances that have been increasing in recent years, and especially in Europe. “It is coming from all directions, spanning political spectrum – the extreme right, extreme left, as well as radical Islam – contradictory and opposing ideologies have merged and found a common denominator, their hatred of Jews,” Yankelevich said.
While noting that these groups are still considered marginal in European society, Yankelevic did point at “an alarming phenomenon appearing in the heart of several EU countries. Those whose role it is to protect and ensure the physical and spiritual well-being of their Jewish communities.
During her speech, Yankelevic addressed debates taking place within several European parliaments regarding the religious freedom of Jewish communities in those countries.
“Let me be clear,” Yankelevic said. “Denying the Jewish freedom of religion implies denying the ability for Jews to live in Europe.”
She explained that “the solution to the rise of antisemitism is not hiding Judaism or removing kipot in public. On the contrary, the solution is to allow and strengthen Jewish identity.”
Yankelevich thanked the forum, which she described as “the vital gatekeepers who stand courageously against the popular tides” and promised to continue to fight against antisemitism everywhere.
“When the Jewish spirit is endangered, it is our responsibility to add light. We in the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs will continue increase our activity to bolster Jewish identity throughout Europe. We will do this by investing in Jewish schools, developing programs and informal activities for different age groups, supporting communities, and strengthening their resilience,” Yankelevic concluded.
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Vice-President of the European Parliament, Fabio Massimo Castaldo urged the European Union to condemn the Azerbaijani aggression against Artsakh.
The Armenian parliamentary standing committee on European Affairs published the statement of the EP Vice-President on its Facebook account.
“I strongly condemn the ongoing violence, and in particular the military operations carried out by the Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno Karabakh. The unacceptable use of military aggression, which led to numerous casualties and injuries even among civilians, totally distorts the possibility of resuming the peace process. This is a gross violation of international law and the dialogue carried out so far within the OSCE. We call on all engaged sites to immediately move back, this military escalation can destabilize the entire region. I am deeply convinced that the EU should raise its voice strongly, by also assessing the possibility of applying sanctions, in case of refusal from the demand to stop the fighting”, the EP Vice-President said.
He stated that together with his colleagues of different EU states he has signed a letter addressed to the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, requesting to make all efforts to immediately cease the fire and launch mandatory mechanisms for possible ceasefire violations as the only mean to restore the necessary trust for the effective dialogue process.
“The European values of pluralism and peace should prevail. Erdogan’s aggressive rhetoric and support to Baku should also be condemned: media sources report about participation of thousands of jihadists from Syria’s north mobilized by Turkey. If this report is confirmed, this intervention is both concerning and unacceptable. We urge all players of the region not to use this conflict as an occasion for expanding their spheres of influence”, the EP Vice-President stated.
On September 27 early morning the Azerbaijani military has launched a massive cross-border artillery attack on Artsakh, including on civilian settlements. Peaceful settlements are also under bombardment, including the capital city of Stepanakert.
84 servicemen were killed and nearly 120 were wounded in Artsakh from the Azerbaijani attack.
Armenia and Artsakh declared a martial law and mobilization.
According to the latest data, the Azerbaijani side has suffered nearly 400 human losses as a result of its aggression. The Artsakh side has destroyed a total of 6 Azerbaijani attacking helicopters, 50 UAVs, 85 armored equipment including tanks, 82 vehicles and 1 aircraft.
Heiko Maas highlighted examples of recent peace efforts, such as the ceasefire in Ukraine, the possibility of renewed talks between the warring sides in Libya, and developments in relations between Israel and Arab countries in the Gulf region.
“This crisis also shows that international cooperation is neither an ideology nor an end in itself. On the contrary, it delivers results,” he said.
Ceasefire call ‘falling on deaf ears’
Despite this progress, he warned that “we’re still a very long way from a new global attitude,” as the UN Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire during the pandemic “is falling on deaf ears in many places.”
The Foreign Minister also stressed the need for greater action against violence and terrorism in the Sahel, and to resolve the nearly decade-long conflict in Syria.
He further cited the importance of justice in achieving lasting peace, both in Syria and elsewhere. He underlined Germany’s commitment to bringing perpetrators of crimes against humanity to account, as well as the country’s support for UN mechanisms that investigate these crimes.
For Mr. Maas, those who “blur the line between right and wrong” jeopardise the international order and peaceful coexistence.
More action on Navalny case
“This applies to those who stand in the way of the work of institutions such as the International Criminal Court. This applies to those who block the Security Council with one veto after another and who prevent its urgently needed reform with constantly new delay tactics,” he said.
“And this especially applies to those who contravene international law, although, as permanent members of the Security Council, they bear particular responsibility for upholding it.”
Mr. Maas called on Russia to “do more” to investigate the poisoning of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
“A case such as this must have consequences. The EU (European Union) therefore reserves the right to impose sanctions,” he stated.
Put people at the centre of pandemic response
The Foreign Minister began his speech by reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic and its longer-term impacts, including hunger, poverty, displacement and conflict.
Due to the ongoing global crisis, the annual debate in the UN General Assembly was held almost virtually, with world leaders providing pre-recorded videos of their speeches.
“As long as the virus is out there, it can affect each and every one of us,” said Mr. Maas, who recorded his statement himself at home, where he is under quarantine after coming into contact with someone who has the virus.
“That is why only when we get the pandemic under control throughout the world will we be able to overcome it in the long term.”
Mr. Maas called for those affected by COVID-19 to be at the centre of all response, while the search for a vaccine against the disease “must not be a competition or a beauty contest.” Here, he underlined Germany’s “clear commitment” to the fair distribution of any potential vaccines or medicines.
Germany has also allocated more than three billion Euros this year for global crisis management, focused mainly on the UN, the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank.
Pope Francis is expected to decline a meeting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has accused the Catholic Church of dropping its moral authority and turning a blind eye to China’s human rights violations in signing an extension of a deal with the country, according to The Guardian.
Critics have said the deal betrays millions of Chinese Catholics, who normally worship at churches off the grid.
“They’re [sending] the flock into the mouths of the wolves,” Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, said at the time.
Two new bishops have been appointed over the past two years following consultation with the Vatican.
Pompeo called on the Catholic church to shine a light on the human rights violations perpetrated by China.
Since signing the deal with China, Pope Francis ignored the imprisonment of at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims. People imprisoned in those prison camps have reportedly been starved, tortured, sexually assaulted, used for slave labor and have their organs extracted.
“The Holy See has a unique capacity and duty to focus the world’s attention on human rights violations, especially those perpetrated by totalitarian regimes like Beijing’s. In the late 20th century, the church’s power of moral witness helped inspire those who liberated central and eastern Europe from communism, and those who challenged autocratic and authoritarian regimes in Latin America and East Asia,” Pompeo wrote in The First Things, a U.S.-based Catholic magazine.
Pompeo continued, “That same power of moral witness should be deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist party . . . What the church teaches the world about religious freedom and solidarity should now be forcefully and persistently conveyed by the Vatican in the face of the Chinese Communist party’s relentless efforts to bend all religious communities to the will of the party and its totalitarian program.”
A new report produced by WHO, the World Heart Federation and the University of Newcastle Australia for World Heart Day celebrated globally on 29 September, confirms a well-established causal link between tobacco smoking and morbidity and mortality related to coronary heart disease and urges all tobacco users to quit.
Every year, coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death and disability globally, causes the loss of 9.4 million lives. Of these, about 1.9 million (or approximately 21%) are attributable to tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke. Across the WHO European Region, where 26% of adults smoke, every fifth death from coronary heart disease was caused by tobacco use in 2017, accounting for approximately 480 000 lives lost.
The brief in a series of Tobacco Knowledge Summaries shows that smokers are more likely to experience an acute cardiovascular event at a younger age, and that the risk to heart health substantially increases even among occasional tobacco users or those who smoke only one cigarette per day. Furthermore, the evidence shows that all types of tobacco and nicotine products contribute to heart disease, with smokeless tobacco being responsible for around 200 000 annual deaths globally from coronary heart disease. E-cigarettes are also not harmless; their use raises blood pressure which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Health benefits of quitting smoking
The effects of giving up smoking on heart health can be seen almost immediately:
Within 20 minutes, heart rate and blood pressure drop.
Within 12 hours, the carbon monoxide level in blood drops to normal.
Within 2–12 weeks, circulation improves.
A year after quitting, the risk of coronary heart disease is about half that of a smoker’s.
15 years after quitting, the risk of coronary heart disease is that of a person who never smoked.
Tobacco control interventions in the WHO European Region
The policy measures in line with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which are increasingly being adopted by countries in the WHO European Region, are proven to make a major difference to heart health. Increases in tobacco taxation, for example, have been directly linked with a reduction in tobacco consumption, thereby leading to better heart health.
Anti-tobacco media campaigns and graphic health warnings have also brought a better understanding of the dangers of tobacco use for heart health. Smoking cessation interventions are a cost-effective measure for preventing coronary heart disease and reducing both short-term and long-term health expenditure. The implementation of comprehensive smoke-free legislation also yields health benefits, including reported reductions in acute coronary events, tobacco-related hospital admissions and deaths.
Preventing coronary heart disease deaths caused by tobacco requires a comprehensive approach with multisectoral cooperation and the engagement of health systems. Health care providers, such as general practitioners, nurses, pharmacists and cardiologists, should raise awareness about the harms of tobacco and second-hand smoke to the cardiovascular system, as well as the benefits of quitting tobacco.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a grant assistance of 15 million dollars to Sri Lanka for the promotion of Buddhist ties between India and Sri Lanka. Briefing the media this afternoon, Joint Secretary (Indian Ocean Region) in the External Affairs Ministry Amit Narang said the grant will assist in deepening people-to-people linkages between the two countries in the sphere of Buddhism.
Mr Modi and his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa held the first-ever India-Sri Lanka Virtual Bilateral Summit today. They agreed that the Indian side would facilitate the visit of a delegation of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka in the first inaugural flight to Sacred City of Kushinagar. Kushinagar Airport was designated as an international airport recently recognizing its importance as a Buddhist site. Both sides also agreed to explore opportunities in the areas of Ayurveda and Yoga.
Narang said the funds could be used for the construction and renovation of Buddhist monasteries and supporting the clergy. It was agreed that the Indian side would facilitate the visit of a delegation of Buddhist pilgrims from Sri Lanka in the first inaugural flight to the sacred city of Kushinagar.
Both leaders were unanimous that the ancient cultural links between India and Sri Lanka are special and must be nurtured further. Mr Rajapaksa made a special mention of the Jaffna Cultural Centre which is an iconic project built with Indian assistance. The centre is almost ready and the Sri Lankan Prime Minister extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to inaugurate the project.
India and Sri Lanka have reached an understanding to extend the MoU on High Impact Community Development Projects for a five-year period beginning 2020. Both leaders agreed to continue the successful Indian housing project and gave instructions to the relevant officials to fast-track the construction of 10,000 houses in the plantation sector. The Joint Secretary said, the discussions were held in a friendly, frank and cordial manner. The outcomes of the Summit are substantial, forward looking and also help to set an ambitious agenda for bilateral ties. Both leaders discussed the economic dimension of the challenges posed by COVID-19.
Prime Minister Modi called upon the new government in Sri Lanka to work towards realizing the expectations of Tamils for equality, justice, peace and dignity within a united Sri Lanka by achieving reconciliation nurtured by implementation of the Constitutional provisions. He emphasized that implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution is essential for carrying forward the process of peace and reconciliation.
Both sides agreed to facilitate tourism by enhancing connectivity and early establishment of an air bubble between the two countries to resume travel.
At home, he has generally been recognised as the long-awaited Great Australian Writer, at least since he won the Nobel Prize.
Although not a popular writer in the ways that Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson are, and though probably many modern Australian novels have outsold his, White was always pleased to find he had sympathetic “ordinary” readers(as distinct from academics, whom he scornfully ignored) scattered through the suburbs that he satirised.
The frequently heard phrase “like something out of Patrick White” reveals how widely he has affected our consciousness, and even readers more familiar with newspaper accounts of his latest controversial political involvement than with his fiction were well aware of him as the Grand Old Man of Australian Letters.
Patrick Victor Martindale White was born in London on May 28, 1912, the son of V.M. White. His early education was at Tudor House, Moss Vale, followed by a stint of jackarooing on the Monaro and around Walgett.
He returned to England to complete his education first at Cheltenham College and then at King’s College, Cambridge.
He travelled extensively in Western Europe and the United States and, during World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in the RAF in the Middle East and Greece. After demobilisation, he settled on a farm at Castle Hill in Sydney’s north-west.
He wrote prolifically for over half a century – novels, short stories and plays – sustaining a level of creativity unrivalled in this country. The variety of his characters and settings, his styles and modes, was prodigious.
Each new work was a fresh and unpredictable departure, but also one which extended, and qualified, his fascination with the paradoxes of human experience, which most often he located in Australia, past or present.
How well qualified he was to present Australia’s human comedy became an issue in the 1950s and 1960s, when he came fully into prominence. Although his first novel, Happy Valley (1939), had won the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal, there was not much awareness of him here until the appearance of The Tree of Man (1955) and Voss (1957).
Praised in England and the US (where, like all his novels, they were first published), these reworked the staple Australian family saga of pioneering and the tragic inland journey of exploration in a modernist manner.
This manner entailed a pronounced, if questioning, religious dimension which confused the developing, and opposed, orthodoxies of Australian literature.
For some who favoured democratic social realism, White was outside the native tradition. For others, White’s “universality” was a welcome alternative to an embarrassing provinciality.
From left: Union leader John Halfpenny, writer and academic Donald Horne and author Patrick White lead the singing of Advance Australia Fair on the steps of Sydney Town Hall in 1976. They were “maintaining the rage” over the dismissal of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, by the governor-general, John Kerr, one year earlier.Credit:Kevin Berry
Personally, White seemed to be outside the mainstream of Australian culture at that time. Given his background, he seemed to many an Anglo-Australian from the colonial past.
Instead of writing about “the Common Man” for an audience of the same, in the “characteristically” Australian way, he seemed an elitist aesthete tainted by the misanthropy of modernism.
It was not until after the war and his decision to return to Australia to live that he engaged fully with his Australian experience. His first truly individual novel, and also his most experimental, The Aunt’s Story (1948), imaginatively projects his memories of his Australian childhood and later wanderings in Europe and America.
On returning to Australia with Manoly Lascaris, the Greek poet he met during the war who became his life-long companion, White, in response to what he felt was the provincial pettiness of local critics, assumed the role of proud Proustian recluse or Joycean exile at Castle Hill at a time when it was a rural retreat on the outskirts of the city.
In the 1960s, in novels, short stories and plays, he lashed out at what he saw as the philistinism and materialism pervading contemporary Australia, epitomised in the mythic suburb of Sarsaparilla, modelled on Castle Hill.
This was an extraordinarily prolific period, with the novel Riders in the Chariot, the plays The Season at Sarsaparilla and A Cheery Soul, and the short story collection The Burnt Ones appearing in successive years from 1961 to 1964. The heavily satiric phase in White’s writing also coincided with a more general awareness, assisted by Barry Humphries (whom White admired), that post-war Australia was characterised by values that were essentially suburban
With comic satire, White was relocating “literature” (usually thought of as remote, and most often imported) in the contemporary and the familiar. The stimulus his example provided other writers cannot be overestimated: here was the internationally known author of The Tree of Man and Voss, which by comparison now seemed quite classical, engaging playfully and often savagely with the immediate and the mundane.
This stimulus can be seen most markedly with the drama. After the earlier-written The Ham Funeral was rejected for the 1961 Adelaide Festival, but given a successful fringe production outside it, White wrote The Season and A Cheery Soul (later revived at the Sydney Opera House).
Satiric but also affectionate towards suburbia, they broke with the prevailing realist conventions. In spirit and techniques, many plays of the”new wave” dramatists a few years later had much in common with them. In the short story and the novel White was also making writers, and perhaps more importantly readers, aware of a wider range of possibilities.
In 1964 Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris moved from Castle Hill to Centennial Park. The novel The Solid Mandala (1966) was the last of his”Sarsaparilla” books. Sydney and Sydney society provided most of the settings for his next novels, The Vivisector (1970) and The Eye of the Storm (1973), and the “shorter novels” collected in The Cockatoos (1974).
With the move to Centennial Park came increasing involvement in political issues. White’s opposition to censorship and the Vietnam War, and his concern over Aboriginal rights and urban development, led to his publicly supporting Labor in 1972.
In 1974, the year after he won the Nobel Prize, he was named Australian of the Year. After the dismissal of the Whitlam Government, he returned his Order of Australia and became a supporter of constitutional reform and republicanism.
A bitter critic of the Fraser Liberal Government, he soon became disillusioned with the new Labor Government’s policies on uranium mining and foreign alliances and supported the Nuclear Disarmament Party instead.
Once assumed to be a reactionary Anglophile, White later revealed himself to be a patriotic progressive. Although his politics were of an idealistic rather than a party kind, they involved a lot of marching and speechmaking, even as his health declined.
His writing, once hailed or attacked for being more “universal” than Australian, also reveals a deep involvement with his own country, its history and potential.
The major historical conflicts that have provided Australian writers with distinctive themes – conflicts between the Aborigines and white settlers, between the convicts and their governors, between Sydney and the Bush – recur throughout his works, as do versions of his own experiences, all presented with an unprecedented eye, and ear, for social differences and tensions.
In 1976, White returned to the historical novel with A Fringe of Leaves, based on the story of Eliza Fraser, and in 1978 his return to the stage was marked by Big Toys, a contemporary morality about public corruption focused on the uranium issue (two other plays followed in 1983).
Patrick White, November 1961.Credit:Staff photographer
His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass, appeared in 1981. A merciless, and artful, self-examination, it omits his many acts of generosity such as his support for Aboriginal education, his presentation of a collection of paintings to the NSW Art Gallery, and his setting aside money from the Nobel Prize to establish an award for older Australian writers whose work has not received adequate recognition.
In Flaws in the Glass White was frank about his homosexuality, a subject that he had addressed in The Twyborn Affair (1979), the novel that had appeared immediately before the autobiography. A text for the post-modernist present, The Twyborn Affair showed White continuing to respond provocatively and playfully to changing social and literary attitudes.
As ever, White’s new work broke out of the categories his interpreters have attempted to force him into. The more fervent, and humourless, have attempted to canonise him as a saint or a sage.
Playfulness also characterised his 1986 novel, the slighter Memoirs of Many in One.
Patrick White remains the greatest Australian writer to date by far, not only because he produced more major works than any other Australian writer has but also because, beyond that, he transcended the cultural divisions from the past which he encountered on returning to Australia after the war.
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He was both contemporary and a traditionalist, an Australian and simultaneously an international writer; his works are both local and universal, realist and symbolic, social and metaphysical.
Lesser writers (and critics) might see these as necessarily opposed categories. White assimilated them, playing them against each other.
Once seen as aloof from Australian “reality” and culture, White changed our perceptions of these, as they have themselves changed over the long time he was writing about them.
White’s being here contributed to those changes and to an altered consciousness of Australia. He opened up “the country of the mind” and, like Voss’s, his spirit is still there.
Despite being taken into consideration only slightly in the EU’s current farming subsidies programme, Conservation Agriculture is set to play a central role in the green architecture of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Conservation Agriculture (CA) lends itself easily to misinterpretations, as the term ‘conservation’ often indicates activities involving the preservation and restoration of degraded natural habitats to improve biodiversity.
However, although CA also promotes biodiversity, it mostly addresses issues referring to a different phenomenon: soil degradation.
Soil organic matter has been increasingly depleted thanks to land-use intensification and mono-cultures, while the use of heavy machinery stresses the soil by causing ground compaction.
CA works to address this via a suite of farming practices designed to avoid physical degradation, such as growing a permanent protective plant cover on the soil and advocating for an agricultural production system based on a total or partial reduction of ploughing and tilling.
According to the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), agronomic practices included in CA are based on three core principles to be fulfilled concomitantly: minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of permanent soil covers and cropping system diversity.
Advocators argue that these practices can bring economic savings for farmers in terms of energy efficiency, while also contributing to decreasing greenhouse gases emissions and building resilience of the agricultural system to climate change.
No-tillage and soil cover
Among the CA’s practices, no-tillage and groundcovers are the most widely known.
No-till, or reduced-till, agriculture is the practice of planting crops without tilling the soil, which is the conventional way of preparing the soil for planting by digging, stirring, and turning it over.
Although no-tillage and reduced tillage can help prevent run-off and erosion, the practices have been slow to take off in Europe.
According to the European Commission, reduced tillage or conservation tillage is practised on around 21.6% of the arable land in EU, while no-tillage is applied to only 4% of arable land.
In a parliamentary question filed last March, the Bulgarian MEP Atidzhe Alieva-Veli asked the EU executive whether it is going to promote the implementation of ‘no-till technology’ by including it as a green measure in the post-2020 CAP.
For the liberal lawmaker, “no-till technology is an approach that should be encouraged as a regenerative form of agriculture that ensures not only high agricultural productivity but also soil regeneration.”
Replying to Alieva-Velli, the Commission recognised the environmental and climate-related benefits of reducing mechanical disturbance of the soil, adding that the CAP already supports specific practices aimed to protect soil against degradation, including minimum or zero tillage, conservation of crop residues and green covers.
As for ground-covers, they refer to the periods of the year when the soil is covered by residues or crops, including catch or cover crops.
Cover crops are efficient in reducing soil and nutrient loss by keeping the land continuously covered with vegetation during the whole year.
In the EU-28 during winter of 2010, 44% of the arable area was covered with normal winter crops, 5% with cover or intermediate crops and 9% with plant residues, while 25% was left as bare soil and 16 % of the arable area soil cover was not recorded.
Putting the ‘CA’ in CAP
In the EU’s current farming subsidies programme, a number of measures relevant to CA were included in the rural development policy, known as the CAP’s second pillar.
Member states and regions can include these measures in their rural development programmes according to their specific needs and priorities.
Some aspects related to the main principles of conservation agriculture were also supported under Horizon2020, the EU’s funding for research, and the European Innovation Partnership on agriculture productivity and sustainability.
However, the real step forward for CA’s uptake is expected in the post-2020 CAP reform, as conservation agriculture practices can be promoted under the new system of eco-schemes, the ‘green architecture’ of the programme.
Eco-schemes are available under the direct payments framework, which constitutes the biggest chunk of EU farming funds.
CA practices are listed in three out of ten ‘Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions’ (GAECs) of the new eco-scheme and include rotation, no ploughing, soil cover, winter crops and crop rotation.
The eco-schemes aim to reward farmers for going even further in the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices, beyond the mandatory requirements set by conditionality.
As proposed by the Commission in the future CAP, these types of practices can contribute to meeting the enhanced environmental and climate ambitions of the agricultural policy.
As in the previous programme, CA practices could be promoted through environmental and climate management commitments available under the rural development framework.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the death of Jaswant Singh Kharla CAP Freedom of Conscience, United Sikhs, Khalra Mission Organization and the author of the book The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra Gurmeet Kaur made a statement to the UN during the 45th session of the Human Rights Council.
According to the president of CAP LC,
“it is time for the truth to be revealed and for the families of the victims to know the truth about the fate of their loved one” and continued saying that “it is the duty of the Indian authorities to shed light on this crime against humanity”. (Their full statement can be seen here)
Jaswant Singh Kharla’s crime is to have uncovered, according to his book
“thousands of state-enforced disappearances, illegal detentions, custodial killings, and mass cremations of the Sikhs under government’s orders, which constitute the Sikh genocide”.
After its discovery Jaswant Singh Kharla took as his mission to stop the “government’s tyranny” by exposing and “holding it accountable through legal means”.
On January 16, 1995, he made public evidence of 3,100 illegal cremations of disappeared persons in just three crematoria from one out of the then thirteen districts in Punjab. He estimated there were a total of 25,000 cremations of disappeared persons throughout the state.
On September 6, 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra himself was abducted in broad daylight, tortured in illegal custody for 52 days before being shot dead; his body dismembered and dumped into the very canal that was used to dispose other bodies that he had set out to find.
Author Gurmeet Kaur who wrote The Valiant – Jaswant Singh Khalra said:
“Twenty-five years later, we hope the government will not obstruct efforts to document the gravity of the state-sponsored genocide before nature takes its course and the aging witnesses and parents of the disappeared die”.
Lately, social media company Pinterest (PINS) has been in the news, mostly for the right reasons. Founded in 2010, the company is mainly a visual search engine that helps people share ideas about their hobbies and interests.
Like any other ad-based internet business, Pinterest has also experienced its share of disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, the stock is positioned much better than most of its peers on operational, strategic, and financial fronts. Pinterest is already up YTD (year-to-date) by 114.06%, while peers such as Snap (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR) are up 51.19% and 36.79%, respectively.
The pandemic has forced many businesses to increasingly offer a range of digital solutions. This e-commerce growth will most likely fuel a rapid increase in the share of digital advertising. The importance of social media in connecting businesses and consumers is only going to increase further. Hence, although uncertainty is ravaging the global economy today, a stable and well-funded social media business like Pinterest can prove to be a big winner in the post-pandemic world.
Pinterest has been growing its subscriber base at breakneck speed, especially during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a blessing for Pinterest, with the user base growing much faster than what was warranted by the seasonal trends. With the relaxation of shelter-in-place restrictions, the company saw a moderation in user base expansion in May 2020. However, despite this, engagement levels have remained strong both in June and July 2020.
Not only has the subscriber base expanded at a very healthy rate, but customer engagement has also been pretty high. With an MAU (monthly active user base) of 416 million, the platform has been helping its customers to tackle various COVID-related use cases.
In the U.S., a significant number of older users have returned to the platform since the start of the pandemic. But the bigger jump came from Gen Z, where people under the age of 25 years has grown faster than those over 25 years.
Now, this highly engaged and fast-growing subscriber base is an underexplored monetization opportunity.
Agreed that the YoY revenue growth in the second quarter was only 4% and ARPU (average revenue per user) dropped YoY by 21%. But that was understandably an outcome of weak advertiser demand. Starting in May, Pinterest has seen demand from the CPG (consumer packaged goods) vertical on the back of robust demand for essential products.
Excluding the second-quarter performance, which has been an aberration, the company has managed to consistently grow revenues YoY, exceeding 30% since the second quarter of fiscal 2019.
There was also one major positive highlight even in the second-quarter revenue performance and that is the company’s solid revenue and ARPU growth in international markets. The company’s investments in developing direct coverage and sales support functions in English-speaking markets outside the U.S. and in Western Europe seem to be now bearing fruit.
The international business remains a major opportunity, considering that it accounted for 15% of second-quarter revenues despite making up almost 75% of the user base. Pinterest is focused on replicating all of the ad-tech tools, insights, and formats which worked in the U.S., to leverage the international market opportunity. The company has also recognized that the majority of ad-spend in Europe happens through agencies. Hence, Pinterest is working on developing tools that would help ad agencies. The company is also seeing untapped revenue opportunities in Latin America and parts of Asia-Pacific.
What differentiates Pinterest from peer Twitter is a pretty clear roadmap towards the monetization of its customer base. The company remains confident in monetizing most of its global user base in the next two years. The company has also been aggressively deploying automation tools such as automated bidding for conversion optimization and tag adoption through partners such as Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) and Google Tag Manager (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) for increased conversion visibility. These tools, coupled with effective measurement of business metrics and improved shopping experience on the platform, are expected to play a pivotal role in convincing small- and medium-sized businesses to direct their ad dollars towards Pinterest.
Pinterest has guided for third-quarter revenues to grow YoY (year-over-year) in the mid-30s percent range, despite assuming deceleration in growth rates starting July associated with back-to-school environment and COVID-19 uncertainties. Analysts are also estimating solid double-digit revenue growth for the company for many more years to come.
Social commerce is another major monetization opportunity for Pinterest
Pinterest has been working to reduce its complete reliance on ad spending. This strategic move could not have come at a better time. The changed consumer behavior triggered by the pandemic will be a major growth driver for social commerce. The social commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compounded average growth rate) of 31.4% from $89.4 billion in 2020 to $604.5 billion in 2027.
In May, Pinterest partnered with Shopify (SHOP). This can prove to be a very lucrative collaboration, considering that the Pinterest community is known for high shopping intent, with almost 80% of the users basing their shopping decisions on pinned items.
According to the press release, “The new channel will allow U.S. and Canadian merchants to tap into this audience to seamlessly turn existing products from their store into “Product Pins” on Pinterest, as well as add a shop tab to their profile on Pinterest, for free organic promotion. Shopify merchants can also promote their pins as a paid ad, bringing customers directly into their brand’s online store for purchase.”
This partnership is expected to bring in a significant amount of purchase commissions for Pinterest, which can provide the much-needed acceleration in its ARPU in the coming quarters.
The company has a robust balance sheet and positive cash flows
Despite the very promising growth story and all the investments that are going in to monetize the ever-expanding opportunity, the company has managed to maintain a strong balance sheet. Pinterest had a cash balance of $1.7 billion and total debt of only $151 million on its balance sheet at end of June 2020. The company’s net operating cash flow was $37.80 million, while free cash flow was $146.32 million for the period from July 2019 to June 2020.
There are a few risks to consider
Although Gen Z has been seen to engage more with the Pinterest platform and explore more of its newer functionalities and services, this may not be the preferred demographic for advertisers. With a growing chunk of the subscriber base belonging to the less wealthy category, advertising rates may take some hit in the coming quarters.
Like any advertising dependent media company, Pinterest’s growth is also invariably tied to the rate of economic activity. Signs of slowing recovery can be seen, as the impact of fiscal stimulus seems to be drying up and new COVID-19 cases continue to emerge. Pinterest had been seeing a gradual improvement in ad demand from the low of April to pretty strong demand across verticals and objectives in July. However, a significant part of this demand, especially in sectors such as retail, travel, restaurants, and automotive, depends on the macroeconomic environment. Historically, retail has been a major ad-spend driver for Pinterest and the ongoing pace of retail store closures can be a major headwind for the company. While ad-spending from pure-play e-commerce and direct-to-consumer retailers has been at healthy levels, these businesses form a small part of the company’s sales mix. Hence, we see that a more prolonged economic recovery can have a detrimental impact on ad-spending and affect Pinterest’s financial performance at least in the short run.
Third-quarter earnings performance will now include a one-time payment of $89.5M, to cancel the lease on the new San Francisco space. Although a hit in the short run, this move can save the company’s annual capital spend by around $440 million.
Verdict
Pinterest is trading at a P/S (price-to-sales) multiple of 18.89x, quite above the 10.27x multiple of Twitter and somewhat more than 18.57x multiple of Snap (NYSE:SNAP). Yet, I believe that there remains upside in Pinterest based on secular tailwinds coupled with a very focused company strategy. A top-line growth over 30% is quite difficult to get at P/S multiples below 20x. Hence, Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris’ price target of $48 seems to be achievable in the next 12 months. You can check other analysts’ ratings and target prices here.
Considering the uncertainties posed by the ongoing pandemic, Pinterest seems to be a good pick for growth investors for retail investors with slightly above-average risk appetite.
Disclosure:I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Last year, the UN General Assembly designated 29 September as the International Day, recognizing the fundamental role that sustainable food production plays in promoting food security and nutrition and highlighting the essential need to reduce food loss and waste.
In addition, with the COVID-19 pandemic underlining the fragility of food systems, and worsening food loss and waste in many countries, Secretary-General António Guterrescalled for “new approaches and solutions” to solve the challenges.
“Food loss and waste is an ethical outrage. In a world with enough food to feed all people, everywhere, 690 million people continue to go hungry and 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet,” he said.
Squandering natural resources
“Food loss and waste also squanders natural resources – water, soil and energy, not to mention human labour and time. It worsens climate change, given the significant role of agriculture in generating greenhouse gas emissions,” added Mr. Guterres.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), around 14 per cent of food produced globally is lost between harvest and retail, with significant quantities also wasted at the retail and consumption levels. The figure is higher in the case of fruits and vegetables, where more than 20 per cent is lost.
When food is loss or wasted, all the resources that were used to produce it – including water, land, energy, labour and capital – go to waste. In addition, the disposal of food loss and waste in landfills, leads to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change, said FAO.
Sustainable Development Goals
The critical issue of reducing food waste is also highlighted in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with Goals 2 and 12 calling for achieving zero hunger, and halving food waste and reducing food loss by 2030, respectively.
“While many countries are taking action, we need to step up efforts,” said the Secretary-General, highlighting that the inaugural observance of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste comes as the world prepare for the 2021 Food Systems Summit.
“I urge countries to set a reduction target aligned with SDG 12, measure their food loss and waste and act boldly to reduce it. Policy action in this area should also be included in climate plans under the Paris Agreement [on Climate Change],” he said.
Many businesses should take a similar approach, continued Mr. Guterres, calling on Individuals to shop carefully, store food correctly and make good use of leftovers.
“Let us work together to reduce food loss and waste for the benefit of people and our planet,” added the Secretary-General.
On the margins of the General debate of the UN General Assembly, UN News spoke to UN Under-Secretary General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, and from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Sylvie Briand, Director of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases.
In a joint interview as part of the UN’s SDG Media Zone coverage, they discussed how important it is for the UN to engage with the public, and highlight international collaborative efforts to develop effective and affordable vaccines for all.
Misinformation is not new … We’ve had misinformation as far back as you look in history. The difference here is that we have a global pandemic that is happening in the social media age – Melissa Fleming
Many firsts
“What is difficult in the current period is, first, there is a lot of fear of the disease and a lot of anxiety from the population, as well as a lot of uncertainty”, said Dr. Briand. “It is a new disease. Many things are first time in this pandemic.
“Misinformation is not new”, said communications chief Fleming. “We’ve had misinformation as far back as you look in history. The difference here is that we have a global pandemic that is happening in the social media age.”
Communications emergency
In a video message broadcast at a high-level event on mitigating the harm from misinformation and disinformation on 23 September, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said COVID-19 was not just a public health emergency, but it is a communications emergency too and that as soon as the virus spread across the globe, inaccurate and even dangerous messages proliferated wildly over social media, leaving people confused, misled and ill-informed.
According to Dr. Briand, when people are anxious and uncertain of a number of things they tend to compare with things they know already or things they have experienced in the past.
Regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, she noted that people “have already preconceptions about vaccines or fear about other vaccines”.
What is very important in this period now … is to really start building a space for a very open dialogue, a two-way dialogue with the population so we can hear their concerns and answer them – Sylvie Briand
“What is very important in this period now, because we don’t have yet the vaccine, is to really start building a space for a very open dialogue, a two-way dialogue with the population so we can hear their concerns and we can answer their concerns for as much as we can”, she added.
Ms. Fleming said people’s fears and concerns were legitimate, “and we want to be listening to them and addressing these fears and concerns with information they can access and understand”.
A high-level event is taking place later on Tuesday, on how to tackle the coronavirus together through the ACT-Accelerator initiative, launched in April as a global collaboration to accelerate the development and production of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines on an equitable basis.
UNICEF/Gabreez
Saba, 23, a community health worker in Amran, Yemen, spends her days meeting people and informing them about vital health information, including COVID-19 and how families can protect themselves.
Reaching out
The head of UN Global Communications (DGC) believes the Organization has the means and the valuable opportunity now to reach people everywhere “with good information, (and) solid public health guidance based on science”.
But “there is not just good information circulating out there”, it is “mixed with bad information, bad science produced by bad actors”, she told UN News.
“The result is that the public on the receiving end, is having a really hard time navigating and distinguishing between what is good and what is bad, what is misinformation and what is disinformation and what really is information based on science”, she added.
“That’s where we come in” on the department level, she noted, with the ability to communicate the scientific facts “in a way that is more accessible, more interesting, more social media-optimized so that it does go into people feeds.
Stressing the importance of accurate information, it was important to let people know “how to spot it and how to talk to friends and family about the kind of misinformation and conspiracies that they are being exposed to, and maybe believing”, said the communications chief.
Verified campaign
The Department of Global Communications has pioneered an initiative to counter misinformation, through the Verified campaign. It offers content based on science, content that is simple, accessible, and relatable.
“We are working with social media platforms, we have recruited information volunteers, who are our kind of digital first responders around the world, members of the public who are communicating for us in their communities with the content that we provide”, Melissa Fleming explained.
A recent study conducted by researchers from Harvard University and three other universities, suggests that under-25s in the United States are most likely to believe virus-related misinformation about the severity of the disease and how it originated.
“I think that is probably a reflection of who is most on social media. It is a younger population, that is getting a digital overload and so their attention span is probably not long enough to look at the piece of information they are getting and really question it”, said Melissa Fleming.
Pause before you post
Part of the initiative is to get people to stop and think, before they post: “What Pause does, is introduce a new social norm, kind of like the campaign, Don’t drink and drive, for example”, the UN official explained.
“What we want our new social norm to be is, pause, take care before you share. And for people to be educated, we are going to be pushing more information out to young people, and everybody, about how much misinformation is out there (and) how to spot misinformation”.
“We believe and we have evidence to believe, that if people took this 30 seconds break, and really question what they were seeing, this would go a long way to stopping the spread, but it is not going to stop it completely”.
What is also need is “more work by the social platforms to not just flag misinformation but really stop it in its tracks”, she added.
According to Dr. Briand, “because people are overwhelmed with information, it is very hard for them to distinguish what is good and what is bad”. “But we think that if you give more good information to people so that they can make informed decisions about their health, then they are less likely to listen to misinformation”, she said.
WHO is working with young people so they feel part of the solution and not ostracized for being spreaders of the coronavirus: “We work with them to change this perception”, she added.
“The most important thing is to work with communities at local levels”, said Melissa Fleming. “We need to think globally but go local. Think globally about the solutions to COVID-19, about the vaccine, no one is safe until everyone is safe”.
The Philippines recently drew attention in the European Union (EU) for an unpleasant reason.
The European Parliament, which consists of elected representatives of the 27 member-countries of the EU, voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution to withdraw the Philippines’ tariff-free privileges under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) if it did not comply with the international convention on human rights.
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The EU criticized the Duterte administration for its bloody crackdown on dangerous drugs that has led to extrajudicial killings, the continuing corruption in government and its threats against press freedom.
Under GSP+, more than 6,000 Philippine products, e.g., pineapples, mangoes, tuna, footwear and coffee, exported to the EU are exempt from tariff.
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With no tax or duty imposed on those products, they become less expensive compared to similar products that do not enjoy that privilege.
In a fit of braggadocio, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque made light of the resolution and dared the EU to make good its threat.
This act of bravado did not sit well with Associated Labor Union (ALU), a labor federation that represents more than 200,000 unionized workers in various companies.
An ALU official said the removal of the tariff privilege would result in “more unemployment and loss of business opportunities.”
That apprehension is based on solid ground. Since the government imposed in March a lockdown on various parts of the country to contain the spread of COVID-19, millions of Filipinos have already lost their jobs.
To aggravate matters, thousands of overseas Filipino workers have been forced to return to the country because of the closure of the businesses of their foreign employers.
And add to the ranks of the unemployed the 200,000 or so recent college graduates who will search for jobs or livelihood in an economy in recession.
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In light of the Philippines’ serious economic condition and worrisome unemployment problem, pooh-poohing or minimizing the EU threat was a grievous mistake.
A forceful response to the EU resolution could have been made without sounding arrogant or belligerent. Roque’s statement made worse an already problematic situation.
It is foolhardy to assume the resolution was all talk and that the EU will not push through with its threat to make Philippine exports less competitive in the EU market.
It can and it has taken similar actions before. The EU imposed financial and nonfinancial sanctions on, among others, China, Russia and Myanmar, for alleged violation of human rights and commission of unlawful acts on their citizens.
Whether or not the sanctions produced their intended results is a different story, but the fact remains the EU can, if it wants to, follow through on its sanction threats.
Bear in mind the Philippines needs the EU more than the EU needs the Philippines.
Citing data from the Department of Trade and Industry, ALU said since that trading privilege was granted in 2014, Philippine exports have increased by 35 percent and created 200,000 more jobs.
In case (knock on wood) the EU makes good its threat, where will the displaced workers, majority of whom are in the rural areas, go to find a living considering the dismal state of our economy?
The New People’s Army would probably be happy to recruit them into its fold.
Perish the thought the EU would be hesitant to remove the tariff privilege because it cannot do without Philippine exports. Those products can be easily supplied by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
There is a lesson to be learned from this incident: There is no room for amateurs in the management of international issues. Leave it to the seasoned diplomats of the Department of Foreign Affairs to handle. They know how to express displeasure without sounding unpleasant.
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TASHKENT (TCA) — The European Union has provided more than EUR 2 million for a project focused on effective, rapid, and coordinated response to COVID-19 in Uzbekistan. The project, which will be implemented by the World Health Organization Country’s Office, will focus on a particular emphasis on provision of personal protective equipment to health and first-line workers in healthcare facilities, the Delegation of the European Union to Uzbekistan reported.
At present, almost all available personal protective equipment (PPE) in Uzbekistan is used for the detection, triage, verification, isolation and treatment of COVID-19 patients and their contacts. That leaves a large share of healthcare workers dealing with other than suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients unprotected, like those in maternity hospitals, TB and HIV clinics, dentists and policlinics, etc. Therefore, the procurement of WHO-recommended PPE for healthcare workers not only working with COVID-19 patients but also in other health services and facilities, is essential to reduce the transmission of COVID-19.
“The healthcare personnel are our everyday heroes and we must make sure that they can work safely when protecting us. This project is a key part of the 36 Million Euro Team Europe response to the pandemic in Uzbekistan,” said Jussi Narvi, Chargé d’affaires of the European Union to Uzbekistan.
“The procurement of enough quality personnel protection equipment is essential to be distributed to all healthcare workers in the country to avoid more losses of healthcare personnel due to illness and to reduce the cases of COVID-19 patients among the population,” said Dr. Lianne Kuppens, Head of the WHO Country Office in Uzbekistan.
With the financial support of the European Union and in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan, the project will strengthen infection prevention and control measures through procurement of sufficient and high-quality PPEs for all healthcare workers in the country for the next two years.
“They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues,” he said in a statement on Monday night.
Our world has reached an agonizing milestone: the loss of 1 million lives to #COVID19.
We must never lose sight of each & every life.
As the hunt for a vaccine — affordable and available to all — continues, let’s honour their memory by working together to defeat this virus. pic.twitter.com/iZ1UnN8d4i
The pain has been multiplied by the “savageness” of the disease, the Secretary-General added, noting that the risk of infection kept families from being with their loved ones, and the process of mourning and celebrating a life was often made impossible.
“How do you say goodbye without holding a hand, or extending a gentle kiss, a warm embrace, a final whisper ‘I love you?’”
At the same time, there is still no end in sight to the spread of the virus, the loss of jobs, the disruption of education, the upheaval to our lives, said Mr. Guterres.
‘We can overcome’
However, we can overcome this challenge, he urged, underlining the need to “learn from the mistakes”.
“Responsible leadership matters. Science matters. Cooperation matters – and misinformation kills. As the relentless hunt for a vaccine continues – a vaccine that must be available and affordable to all – let’s do our part to save lives,” said Mr. Guterres.
“As we remember so many lives lost, let us never forget that our future rests on solidarity – as people united and as united nations.”
‘History will judge us’ – WHO chief
The milestone gives us all “pause for reflection”, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Gehbreyesus in an op-ed published on Tuesday, but represent a moment to come together in solidarity “to fight back against this virus.”
“History will judge us on the decisions we do and don’t make in the months ahead. Let’s seize the opportunity and bridge national boundaries to save lives and livelihoods.”
He repeated the key message that it is never too late to turn things around, if a country becomes mired in a further wave of transmission: “While we await further breakthroughs, we have seen that the virus can be effectively contained through the application of tried and tested public health measures.”
New rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19
Meanwhile, a new COVID-19 diagnostic test, which can provide reliable results quickly, at a lower price and using less sophisticated technology, will help expand capacity to detect cases in low and middle-income countries, the WHO has announced.
Through agreements between WHO and partners, 120 million such tests will be made available to these countries, over a period of six months.
“This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR tests,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing on Monday, adding that it would be “a vital addition” to countries’ testing capacity and is especially important in areas of high transmission.
The tests – antigen rapid diagnostic tests (Ag RDTs) – priced at $5 per unit, are easy to use and highly portable, and provide reliable results in approximately 15 to 30 minutes – substantially faster as well as cheaper than polymerase-chain reaction (PCR) tests, according to WHO.
“The quicker COVID-19 can be diagnosed, the quicker action can be taken to treat and isolate those with the virus and trace their contacts,” said Mr. Tedros.
With agreement and seed funding already secured, the need now is the full amount of funds to buy the tests, stressed the WHO Director-General.
Since Southbound debuted in 2013, our staff and contributors have logged thousands of miles, consumed millions of calories, and taken countless notes and photos to showcase the very best destinations around the region. Although every place we’ve covered is special, some left a particularly powerful impression. Here, we give you the best of the very best, our favorite spots in the South.
Stays
Old Edwards Inn
Photo courtesy of Old Edwards Inn
Old Edwards Inn Highlands, North Carolina Luxury feels laid-back at this historic inn turned high-end resort, which occupies several blocks in the town whose renaissance it helped spur. Sip a glass of Champagne at the Lodge, savor a leisurely gourmet meal at Madison’s, and relax at the spa or on your private porch overlooking evergreens.
Hotel Trundle Columbia, South Carolina Occupying a trio of downtown buildings, this boutique hotel blends historic details—exposed brick, pressed-tin ceiling tiles—with a playful design scheme that’s anything but dated (think Great Gatsby meets Jonathan Adler). Local makers find expression everywhere, from the hand-crafted beds to local wine and beer on tap at the front desk.
Glen-Ella Springs Inn
Photo by Christian Giannelli
Glen-Ella Springs Inn Clarkesville, Georgia With sixteen mountain-chic guest rooms, this 1875 inn nails the historic-charm-meets-modern-comfort combo. In its cozy restaurant, couples celebrate milestones over pecan-crusted trout and rack of lamb. After dinner, snuggle by the firepit on the forest’s edge.
The Willcox Hotel
Photo courtesy of the Wilcox Hotel
The Willcox Hotel Aiken, South Carolina Past guests at this horse-country landmark include Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Its pine-paneled lobby conjures an English gentleman’s study, but it’s rightfully called Aiken’s living room—a place for locals and guests alike to unwind (or gossip) over cocktails.
The Moorings Village
Photo courtesy of the Moorings
The Moorings Village Islamorada, Florida But for the fact that you’re encouraged to eat fruit from the trees, this secluded getaway is every bit Eden. An orchid-studded former coconut plantation is home to eighteen cottages, tennis courts, a lap pool, and a white-sand beach that’s hosted photo shoots for the likes of Vogue and Elle. Don’t miss enjoying a waterside meal at sister restaurant Pierre’s just up the road.
Kimpton Cardinal Hotel Winston-Salem, North Carolina In 1929, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company built what was the tallest skyscraper in the South, an art deco stunner that would inspire the Empire State Building. In 2016, the landmark was given new life as a hotel. Its sleek guest rooms, brasserie, and rec room (complete with adult-sized spiral slide) are new, but the gleaming elevator lobby’s marble floors and walls, brass and nickel elevator doors, and a ceiling studded with gilded tobacco leaves are original.
Magnolia Springs Bed and Breakfast Magnolia Springs, Alabama This postage stamp of a town feels strangely familiar, in part because the authors of Forrest Gump and Fried Green Tomatoes both lived and drew inspiration here. Its namesake bed and breakfast is straight out of such a novel, from the wraparound porch and heart pine floors to the majestic live oaks.
EXPERT PICK “My favorite haunted hotel room is Anna’s room at 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant in Savannah—room number 204. It’s popular, so I do advise you book sooner rather than later. But fair warning: Not all guests can stay all night. She likes to flush the toilet and make the phone ring.” —James Caskey, founder of Savannah’s Cobblestone Tours and author of Haunted Savannah: America’s Most Spectral City
Greyfield Inn
Photo by Peter Frank Edwards
Greyfield Inn Cumberland Island, Georgia Built in 1901 for the daughter of steel tycoon Thomas Carnegie, this Colonial Revival mansion is one of the only dwellings on a remote isle where wild horses roam. Filled with family heirlooms, the inn offers glimpses of American aristocracy—John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette spent their wedding night here—amid a landscape that’s anything but civilized.
Chickens at the Fearrington House Inn
Photo courtesy of the Fearrington House Inn
The Fearrington House Inn Pittsboro, North Carolina Visiting this former eighteenth-century dairy farm is like stepping into a Monet painting. Natural beauty abounds, from the sprawling gardens to the adorable heritage-breed farm animals. Boasting a prestigious Relais & Châteaux certification, the property began as a restaurant (food is still a highlight), then began adding stately, mismatched guest rooms with an organic feel.
Urban Cowboy Nashville The stately Victorian exterior of this East Nashville B&B is a cool contrast to its Southwestern-chic interior, featuring a music room (grab an instrument) and eight Instagram-ready suites (strike a pose next to the clawfoot tub situated in each room). Out back, the Public House bar offers craft cocktails, small bites, and a cozy patio.
The Everett Hotel Bryson City, North Carolina This beautifully restored former bank has slowly expanded over the last decade—from coffee shop to full-service restaurant to plush, ten-suite boutique hotel. Locals pack the cozy, wood-paneled dining room and bar, but only hotel guests may enjoy the mountain views and crackling firepit on the rooftop terrace.
READER PICK “We love the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, Alabama. The hotel and grounds are beautiful. There’s a world-class spa, Robert Trent Jones golf course, great restaurants, and live music every night.” —Brenda Bills Duncan
Rooftop of Anchorage 1770
Photo courtesy of Anchorage 1770
Anchorage 1770 Beaufort, South Carolina This 1770 inn (hence the name) has served as a politician’s home, Civil War hospital, and raucous nineteenth-century social club. Subdued decor in cream and white provides a clean canvas for imagining its colorful past, while three floors of porches—including a rooftop deck with one of the best views in Beaufort—showcase the marshy river.
The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee
Photo courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee
The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee Greensboro, Georgia Families find bliss at this retreat on the banks of Lake Oconee. In addition to world-class golf courses, a sanctuary-like spa, and classic Ritz luxury (country star Carrie Underwood got married here), you’ll find tree swings, nightly s’more roasts, wide lawns for playing tag, and pontoons for rent.
The Swag
Photo by Jumping Rocks Photography
The Swag Waynesville, North Carolina The views are sweeping at this luxurious mountaintop inn, but the Swag is all about the little things: a complimentary walking stick, hot towels before dinner, gourmet picnic lunches. Relax on the 250-acre grounds—an actual stone’s throw from Great Smoky Mountains National Park—or join in on naturalist-led hikes.
Island Hotel Cedar Key, Florida Sloping wood floors and slowly turning ceiling fans welcome guests to this storied hotel, built in 1859. Early patrons flocked here for seafood dinners and simply furnished lodging, among them author Pearl S. Buck and entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford. The wood-paneled Neptune Bar hosted many an impromptu Jimmy Buffett concert in the 1980s. Today, guests come for the iconic heart of palm salad, the rocking chairs lining the wraparound veranda, and a healthy dose of Old Florida charm.
Stony Knoll Vineyards Wine Lodge Dobson, North Carolina Family-owned for generations, this tobacco farm turned vineyard welcomes overnight guests to a restored 1850s cabin with exposed-beam ceilings, homey braided rugs, and the original stone fireplace. The front porch provides a knockout view of the vines and the ideal perch for tasting the winery’s offerings.
Shack Up Inn
Photo by Austin Britt
Shack Up Inn Clarksdale, Mississippi Dogs are welcome, kids are not, at the Shack Up, where you can crash in old shotgun shacks—or in grain bins converted to cottages—amid old farming equipment. Expect corrugated tin roofs, weathered wood walls, and foot-tapping fun: The old cotton gin is now a bar hosting local blues acts.
The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort
Photo courtesy of Kiawah Island Golf Resort
The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island Golf Resort Kiawah Island, South Carolina To get into this resort, you’ll need reservations months in advance, but your reward is oceanside opulence: crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling French windows, spacious guest rooms with Atlantic views, a highly rated spa and indulgent steakhouse, and at low tide, a beach stretching 100 yards from dunes to sea.
Food & Drink
Brent’s Drugs
Photo courtesy of Brent’s Drugs
Brent’s Drugs Jackson, Mississippi Jackson’s buzzy Fondren district is perhaps buzziest for Brent’s Drugs, a 1946 soda fountain featured in the 2011 film The Help. Come sundown, patrons slip into the back of the building and find themselves in a dapper cocktail bar, Brent’s Apothecary.
Leah Chase
Photo by Rush Jagoe
Dooky Chase’s Restaurant New Orleans Since 1939, this Creole restaurant in the city’s historic Tremé neighborhood has served its famous gumbo to everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Barack Obama. Helmed by proprietor Leah Chase (whose life inspired the character Tiana in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog) until her death last year at age ninety-six, it is now run by her daughter, Stella Chase Reese.
Peter Kern Library Knoxville, Tennessee An image of Peter Kern—a German immigrant with a walrus mustache—hovers over this speakeasy inside the Oliver Hotel, accessible through an unmarked sliding door off the lobby. The cocktail menus, sewn into hardcover books, feature drinks named after literary icons, like the fiery Holden Caulfield and the crisp Atticus Finch.
Kimball House Decatur, Georgia A 2020 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bar Program, this is the place for hip cocktails served in even hipper vintage glassware. Located in a former train depot, this Atlanta-area joint has more going for it than drinks: Its oyster menu is widely considered the best in the city (and, some say, the Southeast).
Doe’s Eat Place Greenville, Mississippi Things haven’t changed much since Dominick “Doe” Signa opened this unassuming steakhouse in 1941. Guests still enter through the kitchen, walking past enormous slabs of seasoned beef until they reach the rear dining room. There’s still no menu; your server tells you what they’re cooking. Although the restaurant has franchised, the Signa family owns and operates the original location.
CELEBRITY PICK “I visited India after wrapping up the first season of Scandal, and I can honestly say Mela in Asheville has the most authentic, delicious Indian food. They even bake their bread in a genuine tandoor oven.” —Bellamy Young, actress
La Segunda Central Bakery
Photo by Djamel Ramoul
La Segunda Central Bakery Tampa, Florida Stop in at this century-old bakery in Tampa’s historic Ybor City neighborhood for a flaky guava-and-cheese turnover and a cup of cafe con leche made with locally roasted and ground Naviera coffee. Be sure to pick up a loaf of Cuban bread featuring the signature palmetto leaf.
Chaat from Snackbar
Photo courtesy of Jeffery Grimes/Snackbar
Snackbar Oxford, Mississippi Not located on the Square, but squarely located on the radar of foodies across the country, this bistro from prolific Oxford restaurateur John Currence showcases the talents of Vishwesh Bhatt, who took home the 2019 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South. Order his signature okra chaat, which combines Southern fried okra with Indian chaat masala.
Flora-Bama Perdido Key, Florida Since 1964, this dive bar on the Florida-Alabama line has been a place to catch live music, drink domestic beers, and bury your toes in the silky white sand. So legendary is this roadhouse, it inspired Jimmy Buffett’s hit song “Bama Breeze.”
Coconut cake from Highlands Bar & Grill
Photo by Ian Bagwell
Highlands Bar & Grill Birmingham This Parisian-style restaurant from chef-owner Frank Stitt is known for many things: winning the 2018 James Beard Award for America’s Most Outstanding Restaurant, spawning the careers of many well-known chefs (see: Chris Hastings), and blazing new trails for Southern cuisine. It’s also known for its coconut cake, which earned pastry chef Dolester Miles a James Beard Award in 2018.
Bida Manda Raleigh One of only a handful of Laotian restaurants in the South, this sophisticated spot was opened by siblings who moved from Laos to North Carolina as children. Try the crispy rice lettuce wrap and the green papaya salad, and whatever you do, don’t miss the pork belly soup with coconut curry broth and peanuts. It’s bliss in a bowl.
Yellow Bowl Jeanerette, Louisiana Open since 1927, this Cajun joint housed in a little butter-yellow building is rightfully famous for its crawfish platter: a bowl of etouffee, a crawfish ball, and a serving of crawfish au gratin—the Cajun cousin of lobster mac and cheese.
Cinnamon bread from Dollywood’s Grist Mill
Photo courtesy of Dollywood Parks and Resorts
Dollywood’s Grist Mill Pigeon Forge, Tennessee When it was constructed in 1982, this was the first operating grist mill built in Tennessee in more than a century. However, its chief claim to fame is the cinnamon bread baked here, served fresh from the oven with homemade apple butter or icing. Visitors to Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain theme park devour more than 126,000 of the piping-hot pull-apart loaves a year.
Mollie Fontaine Lounge Memphis In the aptly named Victorian Village neighborhood, this grand former abode is now a funky restaurant and bar. Evenings usually start out low-key—with guests sinking into vintage lounge furniture while a pianist takes requests—before turning into DJ-fueled dance parties.
A Cuban sandwich from Havana Sandwich Shop
Photo courtesy of Havana Sandwich Shop
Buford Highway Atlanta Thousands of immigrant-owned businesses line this busy artery that stretches from Atlanta to Buford—from James Beard nominees (Sushi Hayakawa, Masterpiece) to under-the-radar gems (Yet Tuh, Lee’s Bakery). Don’t miss the Cuban sandwiches and empanadas at Havana Sandwich Shop; open since 1976, it’s considered the first immigrant-owned business on BuHi.
READER PICK “Bud & Alley’s in Seaside, Florida, has the best mahi sandwich on the planet, and the view of the Gulf from the cocktail bar makes you never want to leave.” —Amy Jenkins Godfrey
Jackson’s Steakhouse
Photo courtesy of Jackson’s Steakhouse
Jackson’s Steakhouse Pensacola, Florida Named for Andrew Jackson and situated in the bones of a nineteenth-century mercantile, this is the grande dame of Pensacola’s fine-dining scene. Sit at the lively bar and order bacon-wrapped oysters, prime steaks, and locally caught snapper. The wine list is award-winning, and the cocktails are some of the best—and strongest—in town.
A Hole in the Wall staffer
Photo by Gabriel Hanway
Hole in the Wall Apalachicola, Florida At this sliver of a restaurant, you’ll find three people working: the owner, the shucker, and the waitress keeping the other two in line. Order a dozen raw local oysters and a bottle of 30A Beach Blonde and enjoy the fun as the staffers rib each other like siblings. 850-653-3222
Lula Drake Wine Parlour Columbia, South Carolina This wine bar features a comprehensive but tightly curated menu promoting small-batch, sustainable vintners. How about a white Nero d’Avola or a Macedonian grape you’ve never heard of? There’s also sherry on tap and an extensive beer selection at this warmly lit, brick-walled spot set in a historic downtown building.
Brigtsen’s New Orleans Chef Frank Brigtsen, who trained under legendary New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme, has been a torchbearer for the city’s traditional Creole recipes for the last thirty-four years. At his intimate bungalow restaurant in Uptown, order a bowl of his famous gumbo made with rabbit, andouille, and okra.
Dinner at Salt
Photo courtesy of Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island
Salt Amelia Island, Florida This AAA Five Diamond restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island is helmed by chef Richard Laughlin, who has kept the restaurant at the top of its game since opening day twelve years ago. He incorporates more than forty varieties of salt on the coastal menu, including a sizzling 250-million-year-old Himalayan salt block upon which strips of beef tenderloin are cooked before diners’ eyes.
Straight to Ale
Photo courtesy of Straight to Ale
Straight to Ale Huntsville, Alabama This brewery occupies the former gymnasium of a long-shuttered public middle school. But that’s not the only surprise. Push aside a row of lockers to discover a crowded speakeasy, where the specialty is 140-proof absinthe distilled on-site. Sipping it, you have to wonder if any daydreaming seventh grader (or assistant principal) could fathom such a scenario in a former classroom.
CELEBRITY PICK “At FIG, there’s this gnocchi Bolognese, which is the single greatest Italian dish I’ve had. It is absolutely amazing. I tell everyone who comes to Charleston and can’t get a reservation to go sit at the bar just to order it.” —Darius Rucker, singer-songwriter
Shops
A basketmaker at Sweetgrass Art Pavilion
Photo courtesy of Town of Mount Pleasant
Sweetgrass Cultural Arts Pavilion Mount Pleasant, South Carolina The art of coiled basketry traces its origins to West Africa and first appeared in South Carolina in the late eighteenth century. Today, basketmakers at this open-air market and museum offer a range of household items, from wine-bottle covers to tissue boxes, as well as traditional baskets.
A print from Hatch Show Print
Photo courtesy of Hatch Show Print
Hatch Show Print Nashville After you’ve toured the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, don’t miss this famous letterpress operation located on-site. A working print shop since 1879, it is renowned for its iconic concert posters and handbills.
Cat Head Clarksdale, Mississippi This downtown gathering spot is equal parts record store, bookshop, folk art gallery, and visitor information center. Stock up on blues albums (owner Roger Stolle is known as Clarksdale’s blues ambassador), books about the Delta, and reasonably priced pieces by self-taught artists.
READER PICK “Deep South Mercantile in Arab, Alabama, has all the small-town charm and big-town service you could ask for. Great selection of regional makers, unique items, and unbelievable customer service.” —Kelly Sargent Douglas
Lower King Street Antiques District Charleston Find everything from crystal chandeliers to taxidermy peacocks to eclectic case goods among the curated collections of Charleston’s antiques mecca. Standout shops include David Skinner Antiques, Tucker Payne Antiques, and John Pope Antiques.
Landmark Booksellers Franklin, Tennessee This self-proclaimed “Sanctuary of Southern Lit” stocks more than 35,000 titles, including some 2,000 signed first editions. Books sell from a few dollars to thousands (a signed hardcover of To Kill a Mockingbird can be yours for $2,950), but the guidance from owners Carol and Joel Tomlin is priceless.
The Paris Market and Brocante
Photo by Attic Fire Photography
The Paris Market and Brocante Savannah This giant French flea market is a gift-giver’s dream. On the main level, shoppers find luxe greeting cards, candles, chic baby items, even a vintage candy counter. The lower level features elaborate table settings with vintage china and antique furniture and lighting.
Tupelo Hardware Company Tupelo, Mississippi Family-owned since it opened in 1926, Tupelo Hardware Company has a fascinating claim to fame: One of the original employees sold Elvis Presley his first guitar here in 1946. Visitors today can shop for their own acoustic guitar (including those built for new learners or lefties), in addition to hardware supplies.
The Original Hammock Shop Pawleys Island, South Carolina In 1889, local riverboat captain Joshua John Ward created a cotton-rope hammock featuring a double-latch weave and spreader bar. His design grew in popularity, and in 1938, his family opened the Original Hammock Shop. Be sure to drop by the weavers cottage to watch demonstrations by longtime hammock-maker Marvin Grant.
McCarty Pottery
Photo courtesy of johnwhiteltd.com
McCarty Pottery Merigold, Mississippi In 1954, Lee and Pup McCarty made their first pieces of pottery in an old mule barn with clay from their pal William Faulkner’s land. Today, art lovers and avid collectors make pilgrimages to the barn for McCarty platters, candlesticks, and casserole dishes, which bear the family’s trademark wavy line representing the Mississippi River.
CELEBRITY PICK “My favorite hangout in Oxford is Square Books. It’s got that bubble-in-time vibe that the best indie bookstores have, the most relaxed and welcoming feeling.” —Greg Iles, author
Qualla Arts & Crafts Cherokee, North Carolina Founded in 1946, this is the oldest Native American cooperative in the country. Browse an extraordinary selection of handmade baskets, pottery, and beadwork showcasing the traditional arts and crafts of the Eastern Cherokee.
Sweet Grass Dairy Cheese Shop
Photo courtesy of Explore Georgia
Sweet Grass Dairy Cheese Shop Thomasville, Georgia For twenty years, this dairy has produced award-winning cheeses, such as the Camembert-like Green Hill and the creamy-crumbly Asher Blue. At its downtown shop, sample a loaded cheese or charcuterie board while enjoying a cocktail or glass of wine.
Billy Reid Florence, Alabama International designer and Florence resident Billy Reid creates classic American luxury clothes with a Southern twist on the second floor of his downtown studio. Sip bourbon as you browse current collections at his flagship store.
Attractions
Whitewater Express
Photo courtesy of Explore Georgia
Whitewater Express Columbus, Georgia Intrepid adventurers test their mettle rafting and kayaking—even zip-lining over—a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee River. Cutting through downtown Columbus, the rapids constitute the longest urban course in the world. Rafters appreciate the range of grades—from Class I to Class IV—and they also dig the tailgating atmosphere.
Old Salem Winston-Salem, North Carolina In 1766, Moravians, members of a Protestant denomination from Central Europe, founded Salem. Today, 109 buildings from their historical settlement have been restored or reconstructed, and dozens of craftspeople and reenactors bring the village to life. Watch shoemakers, tailors, potters, and gunsmiths ply their trades as they would have two centuries ago, and stroll the numerous gardens showcasing heirloom plants.
Tabasco Factory Avery Island, Louisiana Since 1868, the McIlhenny family has produced and bottled its famous Tabasco pepper sauce on Avery Island. Follow the process from the pepper plants all the way to the bottling line on the factory tour, then sidle up to the tasting bar at the country store to sample Tabasco soda pop or ice cream drizzled with raspberry-chipotle pepper sauce. Don’t miss the island’s 170-acre garden and wildlife sanctuary, Jungle Gardens.
CELEBRITY PICK “Entertainment is all around you in New Orleans’ French Quarter; you’re walking through it. That’s how I felt in the West Village in New York and in Venice Beach. But of course, none of that is as old as the Quarter.” —Lynn Whitfield, actress
Discovery Cove
Photo courtesy of Discovery Cove
Discovery Cove Orlando Snorkeling in a tropical lagoon, hand-feeding exotic birds, becoming friends with a dolphin—it’s just another day in paradise at this Central Florida park and resort. Unlimited food and beverages, wet suits and snorkeling gear, hammocks, and even private cabanas make this oasis as easy as it is outstanding.
Brookgreen Gardens Murrells Inlet, South Carolina Industrialist Archer Huntington and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, purchased four former rice plantations in 1930, transforming them into America’s first public sculpture garden. Today, the 9,000-acre garden showcases the world’s largest outdoor collection of American sculpture (more than 2,000 works by 430 artists), as well as thousands of flowers and centuries-old oak trees.
Monetta Drive-In Theatre Monetta, South Carolina Known as the Big Mo, this charmingly retro drive-in plays double features on three screens from March to November. It’s also beloved for special events such as pajama nights, cookouts, and an annual screening of the year’s Oscar winner for best picture. Rent a radio and stock up on concessions—a giant fiberglass peach marks the stand.
EXPERT PICK “The attraction I get the most joy out of is Expedition Everest in the Animal Kingdom. The ride itself is just singular—I can’t think of another roller coaster like it. Every time I do it, I laugh out loud because it’s so great.” —Bob Sehlinger, author of five books on Walt Disney World in his Unofficial Guide series
The Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama Atlanta This mammoth 360-degree painting, created in 1886 and measuring 371 feet long and forty-nine feet high, places viewers in the heart of the Battle of Atlanta at 4:45 on the afternoon of July 22, 1864. Recently relocated to a new building and restored at a total cost of $25 million, the cyclorama is now on permanent display at the Atlanta History Center, one of only seventeen surviving full-scale cycloramas in the world.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium Clearwater, Florida Winter the Dolphin’s injury, recovery, and prosthetic tail inspired the Dolphin Tale movies. See her in person, along with other full-time residents—Thelma the nurse shark, Spot the moray eel, and Ricky the pelican—at this marine-life rescue center.
Cupola House Edenton, North Carolina Incorporated in 1722, Edenton, the first capital of the North Carolina colony, feels more New England than Old South. Case in point: this architecturally unique mansion built in 1758 and known for its decorative woodwork. Don’t miss the property’s expansive Colonial Revival Gardens, filled with fruit trees, herbs, and other plants grown here in the eighteenth century.
Rock City
Photo courtesy of See Rock City
Rock City Chattanooga, Tennessee What began in 1932 as the rock garden to end all rock gardens is today one of the most intact vintage attractions in the South. Its original trail, which winds through giant rock formations atop Lookout Mountain and ends at an outcropping known as Lover’s Leap (from which seven states can be seen), continues to delight guests who heed the call to see Rock City.
Tours
Rural Studio Tour Newbern, Alabama An Auburn University architecture program brings students to western Alabama’s Black Belt to study the region’s historic architecture and construct new low-cost homes and innovative community buildings with repurposed materials. Pick up a project map at the school’s Newbern office and check out some of the students’ 200-plus structures. Among the standouts is the Akron Boys & Girls Club 2; known for its striking barrel vault–covered basketball court, it was named one of the world’s most beautiful buildings by Travel + Leisure.
Landmark Tour Jekyll Island, Georgia Purchased in 1886 as an enclave for America’s elite, Jekyll Island once served as the winter playground of Rockfellers, Vanderbilts, Pulitzers, Morgans, and Astors—a Who’s Who of the Gilded Age. Hop aboard this docent-guided, open-air trolley tour of the island’s 240-acre historic district, which includes entry into select family manses, referred to as “cottages.”
Walk Monroeville Monroeville, Alabama Stop in at the redbrick courthouse made famous by To Kill a Mockingbird and pick up a walking-tour map of 1930s Monroeville. Stroll the surrounding streets, searching out buildings of significance to young Harper Lee and her childhood playmate Truman Capote. For example, check out the former Monroe County Bank, where Lee’s father kept a law office, and the storefront that once housed Thompson’s Bakery, among Capote’s favorite stops.
Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour Winter Park, Florida Climb aboard a pontoon and explore three of Central Florida’s most beautiful lakes, each connected to the other by canals built in the 1880s to transport pine. As you float along, your guide will point out ginger plants and banana trees, a 350-year-old live oak, and wild bougainvillea. You’ll also see several mansions designed by noted architect James Gamble Rogers.
Museums
Dalí Museum
Photo from Bigstock
The Dalí Museum St. Petersburg, Florida Take a mind-bending journey through the world of Salvador Dalí. The museum’s undulating geodesic building was designed by Yann Weymouth, who helped create the Louvre’s famous glass pyramid, and its collection of oil paintings, drawings, sculpture, and other works by the Spanish surrealist is the largest outside Europe.
National Civil Rights Museum Memphis The centerpiece of Memphis’ first suburb, South Main, this emotionally arresting museum is located around the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot in 1968. Three-dimensional interactive exhibits place visitors in the back of segregated city buses and in front of lunch counters, bringing to life the struggle for racial justice in America.
Donald Harrison, Sr. Museum New Orleans, Louisiana Learn about the flamboyant Mardi Gras Indian tradition at this small museum dedicated to folklorist Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr. Located in New Orleans’ Tremé neighborhood, the center showcases a collection of Harrison’s intricate beadwork and several Harrison family suits. The orange modernist building, constructed by Tulane University’s School of Architecture, is almost as attention-getting as the indigenous artwork displayed inside.
READER PICK “The International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, is an incredibly informative and well-done museum in an original Woolworths. Surprisingly cute town as well!” —Angelique Richardson
Lightner Museum St. Augustine, Florida This museum, housed in Henry Flagler’s 1889 Alcazar Hotel, is a treasure trove of Gilded Age relics—from big-game trophies and shrunken heads to fine furniture, cigar labels, and one of the nation’s finest collections of cut glass. Plan on lunch at the museum’s Cafe Alcazar, located in the deep end of what was once the world’s largest indoor pool.
Mobile Carnival Museum Mobile, Alabama Let the good times roll at this museum spotlighting the nation’s oldest Carnival, first celebrated by settlers and sailors at the original Fort of Mobile on Ash Wednesday 1703. Check out exhibits on Mardi Gras firsts—from parades to krewes to courts—as well as a massive display of jaw-dropping regalia, which includes the world’s largest collection of trains.
Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art Winter Park, Florida Charles Hosmer Morse, one of Winter Park’s wealthiest founders, passed on a love of art to his heirs, who later amassed the world’s largest collection of works by famed stained-glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany. Don’t miss the Tiffany Chapel exhibit, a stunning mosaic-and-glass chapel interior he created for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
Rosenbaum House
Photo by Kristin Karch
Rosenbaum House Florence, Alabama Renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed around 1,000 structures, and this Alabama jewel—his only work in the state—is considered one of his masterpieces. Built in 1939 for less the $15,000, the house may be the finest expression of Wright’s Usonian design concept, which features native materials, flat roofs, and a bringing together of indoor and outdoor spaces.
Experiences
Oyster Fine Bamboo Fly Rods
Photo courtesy of Oyster Fine Bamboo Fly Rods
Make your own fly rod at Oyster Fine Bamboo Fly Rods Blue Ridge, Georgia While most of the world’s top makers of fly-fishing rods zealously guard their secrets, not so William “Bill” Oyster, whose rods have graced the grips of anglers like former president Jimmy Carter. Oyster welcomes amateur artisans to his Blue Ridge studio for weeklong classes. Stay in his Cast & Blast Inn, situated above the studio, and leave with a rod crafted with your own hands.
Search for shells in Sanibel Sanibel Island, Florida Find rare junonia and lion’s paw shells at the island Juan Ponce de León called the “coast of seashells.” Home to more than 400 shell varieties, its sandy shores (especially its gulf-facing beaches) offer the perfect place to scoop up a one-of-a-kind souvenir.
Wynfield Plantation
Photo courtesy of Wynfield Plantation
Hunt for quail at Wynfield Plantation Albany, Georgia Make like Kevin Costner and John Schuerholz and experience the sporting life in the quail-hunting capital of the world. Edge through the stillness of wiregrass and longleaf pines until the region’s famous bobwhite quail explode out of the brush, sending your dog team into action. Come nightfall, retire to your fully stocked private cabin and swap stories over whiskey.
Tap your toes at Sutton Ole Time Music Hour Granville, Tennessee Feast on fried chicken while treating your ears to legendary live bluegrass during this Saturday-evening tradition at the historic T.B. Sutton General Store. Check out vintage signs, browse old-fashioned toys, and clap your hands to some of the best banjoists in the biz.
CELEBRITY PICK “My husband Carl and I have a camper, and we love traveling all over Tennessee. We like visiting the small towns like Jonesboro, and I love going to Chattanooga. We love Ringgold, Georgia, too. That’s where we got married.” —Dolly Parton, entertainer
Swimming with manatees on Crystal River
Photo courtesy of Plantation on Crystal River
Swim with the manatees and dive for scallops on Crystal River Crystal River, Florida November through March, swim among endangered West Indian manatees—gentle sea cows who love the river’s warm, spring-fed waters. July through September, hunt for scallops in the swaying grasses and let a professional chef cook them up for dinner. The Plantation on Crystal River is the jumping-off point for both unforgettable experiences.
Augusta Canal
Photo courtesy of Explore Georgia
Take a Petersburg boat tour along the Augusta Canal Augusta, Georgia Step inside an open-air Petersburg boat and float along the city’s beautiful labyrinth of waterways. Offered by the Augusta Canal National Heritage Area, many tours pass historic sites such as the Confederate Powder Works and its original 150-foot brick chimney. On weekends, enjoy sunset excursions and music cruises.
Bouldering
Photo from Bigstock
Scale a boulder at Little Rock City Chattanooga, Tennessee Climb giant rocks without a rope at this legendary boulder field. The sport is a bit like putting together a puzzle: If you grab that groove up there with your right hand, where will your left hand go? Climbers call these bouldering routes “problems.” With the right skills—and more than a little courage—nearly every problem can be solved.
Get in on the game with the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club St. Petersburg, Florida Friday nights are open courts (and BYOB!) at the normally members-only St. Pete Shuffleboard Club. Located alongside downtown’s Mirror Lake, it’s the largest and oldest shuffleboard club in the world. Never played? Ask the volunteers, some of whom play on the competitive circuit, for pointers.
Train like an astronaut at Kennedy Space Center Cape Canaveral, Florida Don virtual reality goggles and retrieve rocks from Mars. Hop inside a rover, survive a couple of crashes and flips, and float around in a microgravity simulation. The center’s Astronaut Training Experience might not actually qualify you to go to Mars, but it does offer its own out-of-this-world thrills.
Editor Allison Entrekin at the New Orleans School of Cooking
Photo courtesy of the New Orleans School of Cooking
Make a roux at the New Orleans School of Cooking New Orleans It’s great fun showing up at the school’s nineteenth-century French Quarter warehouse, standing in front of a professional-grade stove, and making a roux. It’s also intimidating. Roux is the building block for most Creole recipes, the thing that separates the true Louisiana cooks from the pretenders. Thankfully, the school’s chefs know how to keep you stirring and whisking like a local.
Fly in a World War II airplane with the Commemorative Air Force Chapter’s Dixie Wing Peachtree City, Georgia Soar into the clouds in a 1943 North American LT-6, the kind of aircraft the Allies trained with during World War II. Your fifteen-minute joyride in the bird nicknamed “Old Growler” and piloted by a Dixie Wing member offers the chance to pay airborne tribute to the Greatest Generation.
A mermaid at Weeki Wachee Springs
Photo courtesy of Weeki Wachee Springs State Park
Attend Mermaid Camp in Weeki Wachee Springs Weeki Wachee, Florida Mermaids are more than myths at this vintage tourist attraction, where they have performed daily synchronized swimming shows since the 1940s. If you feel the call to don a Lycra tail and take the plunge, the park also offers weekend mermaid camps with instruction in water-ballet moves, behind-the-scenes tours, and plenty of photo ops.
Hang gliding in the Outer Banks
Photo courtesy of Kitty Hawk Kites
Hang glide in the Outer Banks Nags Head, North Carolina Launch into the air from a 100-foot-high dune at Jockey’s Ridge, just south of the spot where Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew the first airplane near Kitty Hawk in 1903. Kitty Hawk Kites, which operates the world’s largest hang-gliding school, offers lessons for all levels.
Biscayne National Park
Photo by Paul Marcellini
Explore the South’s National Parks Multiple locations From the underwater wilderness of south Florida’s Biscayne to the soaring hardwoods of South Carolina’s Congaree; from the windswept isles of Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys to the leafy vistas of Great Smoky Mountains straddling the border between Tennessee and North Carolina, the national parks of the South are as varied as the region itself. Don’t miss the Everglades, Florida’s vast subtropical ecosystem of flora and fauna that is simply in a league of its own.
Wander the Creole Nature Trail Sulphur, Louisiana Begin your exploration of this 180-mile trail at its Adventure Point headquarters, where you’ll learn how to identify the calls of local birds, smell spices used in traditional Cajun dishes, and try your hand at playing instruments from zydeco bands. Knowledgeable staffers offer maps and tips for spotting animals, from giant alligators to the pink dolphins that often swim alongside the Cameron Ferry.
See the waterfalls at Jocassee Gorges Sunset, South Carolina Comprising more than 43,500 acres, these gorges are a natural wonder marked by rugged forests, mountain streams, and one of the largest concentrations of waterfalls in the eastern United States. Jocassee Lake Tours offers pontoon trips that take you right up to many of the cascading wonders, including eighty-foot Laurel Fork Falls.
Go birding on Dauphin Island Dauphin Island, Alabama Considered one of the top birding locations in North America, this is the first landfall for myriad neotropical species after their long, arduous migration from Central and South America each spring. It’s also their last rest stop before they fly home in the fall. Spot hundreds of varieties, including rare piping plovers, reddish egrets, and warblers.
CELEBRITY PICK “I love how there’s no infrastructure on Georgia’s Cumberland Island. I love the empty beach. I love that we can go clamming. I’ve gone oystering there when it’s freezing cold. I’ve also been there at the same time as Jimmy Carter, which was lovely.” —Lucy Buffett, restaurateur and author
BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir
Photo courtesy of Explore Gwinnett
Marvel at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Lilburn, Georgia Suburban Atlanta is home to one of the continent’s largest Hindu mandirs. No matter your religious persuasion, you’ll be wowed by the palatial temple’s intricately carved exterior, gleaming Carrara marble, vibrant shrines, and reflection pond with elephant-shaped fountains. Don’t skip the $5 audio tour.
Events
Key West Literary Seminar Key West, Florida | January Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Robert Frost all lived and wrote in Key West. Now acclaimed and bestselling authors gather here each year for conversation around a particular literary theme. The 2021 lineup, which explores the topic of desire, includes Jericho Brown, John Irving, Susan Choi, and Key West resident Judy Blume.
Sapphire Valley Outhouse Races Sapphire, North Carolina | February Who wouldn’t want to watch decorated outhouses race on skis to raise money for charity? Cheer on the potties (and their pilots) as they speed down a snowy hill in a competition for best theme, most humorous, top construction, and fastest. Past entries have included a fire-hydrant design dubbed the “Canine Urination Station” and “Snowy & the Fab 7,” with driver Snow White pulling seven mini dwarf toilets.
Savannah Music Festival Savannah, Georgia | March–April The city’s moss-draped parks and historic buildings play host to this world-class music festival each spring. Lauded for its wide range of musical genres and high-caliber performers (such as singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, jazz singer Dianne Reeves, cellist David Finckel, and pianist Wu Han), this event is a must for music enthusiasts.
Natchez Spring Pilgrimage Natchez, Mississippi | March–April In 1931, a spring freeze spoiled the Natchez Garden Club’s annual garden tour, so they planned a showcase of local residences instead. And thus, this grande dame of home tours was born. Natchez was once one of the country’s wealthiest towns, and its unspoiled antebellum mansions surrounded by blooming azaleas exude undeniable grandeur.
Digital Graffiti Alys Beach, Florida | May This sophisticated coastal town’s Grecian white walls serve as the canvas for digital graffiti artists during this cutting-edge projection-art festival (this year moved to October). Mind-bending exhibits transform the entire town’s facades into a dynamic work of art. It’s “photon-bombing” at its best.
Underwater Music Festival
Photograph courtesy of Underwater Music Festival
Underwater Music Festival Looe Key Reef, Florida | July For thirty-five years, divers, snorkelers, and musicians have gone “under the sea” at this melodious marine festival. Submerged speakers broadcast ocean-inspired tunes as players perform with instruments such as the “trom-bonefish,” “manta-lin,” and “bass-oon.” With a dose of eccentricity, the event brings awareness to coral reef conservation.
Dirty Dancing Festival Lake Lure, North Carolina | September A filming location for the cult movie, Lake Lure comes alive each year with Dirty Dancing soundtrack tunes and fans sashaying like Baby and Johnny. At the lake-lift competition, re-create the film’s splashiest move in the same waters where Patrick Swayze held Jennifer Grey high in the air.
National Storytelling Festival Jonesborough, Tennessee | October Experienced “tellers” and thousands of listeners gather in this picturesque town to share stories through a mashup of monologues, performance art, and poetry readings. Share your own story at the Swappin’ Ground, where anyone can stroll up and tell a tale.
National Pumpkin Destruction Day The Rock, Georgia | November At Georgia’s popular agricultural destination, The Rock Ranch, “smash it, don’t trash it” is the motto of the day. Families bring their own pumpkins to bash, drop, pulverize, even explode. There’s pumpkin bowling, pumpkin archery, even cannons from which to launch a jack-o’-lantern. Don’t miss the pumpkin-pie-eating contest.
Natchitoches Christmas Festival Natchitoches, Louisiana | November–January Steel Magnolias fans will love this annual celebration that inspired the movie’s Christmas carnival. See millions of twinkling lights, brightly lit displays along Cane River Lake, and weekend fireworks shows. Book a stay at the Steel Magnolia House Bed and Breakfast, where Shelby Eatenton’s family lived in the beloved film.
With contributions by: Kevin Benefield, Larry Bleiberg, Sam Boykin, Wendell Brock, Beth Castle, Lynn Coulter, Beth D’Addono, Allison Entrekin, Margaret Evans, Elizabeth Florio, Dana Ford, Jennifer Franklin, Jason Frye, Jennifer Green, Emma Hunt, Brooke Porter Katz, Bret Love, Hanna Lustig, Jennifer Rainey Marquez, Merrell McGinness, Amy Meadows, Calli Monnier, Tony Rehagen, Anne Roderique-Jones, Whitney Tomasino, Suzanne Wright
This article appears in the Fall/Winter 2020 issue of Southbound.
Sir, – In her article on the French official assault on Ireland’s corporate tax regime, Lara Marlowe quotes from a report by the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute, which claims that Ireland’s receipt of EU structural funds has enabled this country to offer a low corporate tax rate (“French look intent on pursuing EU tax harmonisation”, Business News, September 25th).
<p class="LETTER">That assertion is highly questionable. </p>
<p class="LETTER">For over a quarter of a century, Ireland’s corporate tax revenues relative to GDP have been larger than France’s, and before that were not much more than 0.5 per cent of GDP lower. </p>
<p class="LETTER">This is incompatible with the idea that the structural funds financed Ireland’s low corporate tax rate. In fact, as is often the case in public finance, Ireland discovered that the lower the rate, the higher the take. </p>
<p class="LETTER">The Irish corporate tax regime has powered Ireland’s ascent out of the ranks of those who need EU funds to the status of a net contributor to the EU budget. That means that going forward Ireland will ultimately pay more than it receives from such initiatives as the EU €750 billion Covid recovery fund, cited by the Jacques Delors Institute as an act of EU solidarity that requires tax harmonisation among member states. </p>
<p class="LETTER">In debates on the issue of Ireland’s company tax regime, there is often the claim – and there is an inference of it in the institute’s report – that Ireland somehow “owes” the EU for the structural funds. If the funds did create debts, whether legal, political or moral, they were more than paid off in 2011 when the European Central Bank (headed at the time by a French national) insisted that Ireland should repay all of the Irish banks’ creditors (thought to be mainly French and German interests). </p>
<p class="LETTER">The error of letting creditors off in financial crashes like this has been long recognised by the IMF. At the time it urged that some at least of the €60 billion involved in the Irish case should be shouldered by these creditors. The error was recognised subsequently by the EU, which now makes this kind of “bailing in” a standard feature of any future systemic financial rescues. Too late for the Irish taxpayer.</p>
<p class="LETTER">Finally, the proposal from a French official, also cited in Lara Marlowe’s article, that the EU should bend the rules to get around article 116 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which enshrines tax autonomy, smacks more than a little of the sort of manoeuvres recently seen in our nearest neighbour. At least the British made no bones about their readiness to break an agreement already made. Usage of EU gobbledygook like “passerelle” should not be allowed to obscure the fact that something similar is afoot in Europe. – Yours, etc,</p>
<p class="LETTER">JIM DORGAN,</p>
<p class="LETTER">Blackrock, </p>
<p class="LETTER">Co Dublin. </p>
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