Japan: Traditional Japanese painter finds happiness as a Buddhist nun
Monka Nakata loves Japanese temples and can’t get enough of them.
It is fitting then that the 46-year-old became a Japanese-style painter who depicts scenes that highlight traditional Japanese culture, including ceremonies and rituals at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Along the way she also became a Buddhist nun. ... (Read more)
The Asahi Shimbun
Germany: Thousands form human chain in Dresden
Thousands of people gathered in Dresden on Thursday night to remember the destruction of the city by Allied bombers in World War II. For the first time in more than a decade neo-Nazis stayed away from the memorial. ... (Read more)
The Local
Chile: February in Santiago — a nation on vacation
Productivity plummets, transport prices skyrocket, beaches swarm and the country’s biggest metropolis empties as Chile takes the month off.
There is a popular saying in Chile, “en febrero, nadie trabaja” — “nobody works in February.”
Statistics back it up. As people flock to popular holiday destinations, the metropolis of more than six million empties, crowds in the normally packed metro thin and the customary pall of smog hanging over the city disperses. ... (Read more)
Santiago Times
Ireland: London GAA teenagers get taste of Irish history
In Dublin’s GPO yesterday evening it was a history lesson like few others for the group of London teenagers. “There were 144 men in here and one woman, and she was Winifred Carney, James Connolly’s secretary, with her Remington typewriter.”
Guide Lorcan Collins was concluding his 1916 tour for 17 members of the Southall Shamrocks GAA team from Featherstone High School in Southall
Almost 99 per cent of the school’s 1,500 pupils are from an ethnic Asian/African background. ... (Read more)
Irish Times
Sweden: Breaking Beer: Science writer to Swedish brewer
US micro brewer Kevin Zelnio talks about the importance of Swedish contacts, how Swedes are Europe’s most progressive beer makers, and how brewing beer in the Swedish forest makes him feel like Walter White from Breaking Bad. ... (Read more)
The Local
Antarctica: Water, water everywhere
Canada: Ontario craft brewers seek more sales options
As demand for craft beer grows, Toronto brewers want alternatives to the LCBO and the Beer Store.
Perhaps it was not the best way to start a conversation.
On Monday morning, as a handful of microbreweries were setting up for a beer tasting at Evergreen Brick Works, Premier Kathleen Wynne was spotted walking through the building, en route to the outdoor skating rink. ... (Read more)
The Star
