Indonesia
Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reach Indonesia ‘after seven months at sea’
Nearly 300 Rohingya migrants reached Indonesia early Monday claiming to have been at sea for seven months, United Nations officials said, in one of the biggest landings by the persecuted Myanmar minority in years. The migrants — including more than a dozen children — were spotted at sea on a wooden boat by locals who helped them land near Lhokseumawe city on Sumatra’s northern coast, officials said. “From their testimonies, they said that they were seven months adrift,” said UN refugee agency coordinator Oktina, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “We have seen their condition is very weak at the moment,” she added. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project — an NGO that focuses on the Rohingya crisis — said the migrants may have been held at sea while traffickers extorted money f...
Premier League terminate £490 million TV deal in China
The Premier League has terminated its TV rights deal with China, its biggest overseas contract, leaving a huge hole in clubs’ finances. The deal with Chinese broadcaster PPTV was worth around £490m and had lasted only one of its three years. The conflict is said to have been around a fee of £160m that the Premier League was owed in March but did not receive. “The Premier League confirms that it has today terminated its agreements for Premier League coverage in China with its licensee in that territory,” a spokesman said on Thursday. “The Premier League will not be commenting further on the matter at this stage.” It is not known if the conflict is based purely on money or involves the escalating political tensions between China and the UK government. Boris Johnson announced in July that Hua...
International borders: 10 remarkable frontiers
From mountains to libraries, we take a look at some of the most extraordinary international borders to be found across the globe Over the last few years, we’ve seen an impressive collection of new websites, blogs and social media accounts dedicated to ‘travel porn’. They’re filled with big, sweeping images of fairytale lands and precarious precipices. Sometimes, like this incredible piece on architectural density in Hong Kong, they’ll depict urban decay or stifling poverty – always gilded by the photographer’s lens. At Atlas & Boots, we always wanted to strike the right balance between travel porn and more in-depth content; the type that provided some previously unknown knowledge or insight. We’re using the current downtime to update some old content and came across this post about unu...
Climbing the seven summits: a route to the top
Climbing the seven summits – the highest mountain on every continent – is an improbable dream of mine… but that’s the beauty of dreams I have always loved trekking and climbing. I usually spend several weeks of any given year on the grades of the Scottish Highlands or Welsh Snowdonia or ideally further afield such as the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland or the K2 base camp trek in Pakistan. It was one of these trekking trips – to Tanzania in 2010 – that ignited something new inside me. It was while climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, that an idea, an ambition, began to formulate. My hobby deepened into passion and I realised that I wanted to achieve something great: to climb the seven summits, the highest mountain on every continent. Mountain Continent Altitude Tech....
17 megadiverse countries of the world
We profile the world’s megadiverse countries, from obvious contenders like Ecuador and Brazil to one or two surprise entries It should be comforting to know that a mere 17 countries hold more than 70% of the world’s species. It should be easy to rally this small group of ‘megadiverse countries’ to protect the planet’s extraordinary biodiversity. Alas, some of these countries are also the world’s biggest consumers and polluters. In July 2000, the UN’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre recognised 17 megadiverse countries which hold the majority of Earth’s species and high numbers of endemic species (i.e. those unique to an area or country). To be termed megadiverse, a country must have at least 5,000 of the world’s plants as endemics and have marine ecosystems within its borde...
