Strife
We really can�t perceive the Life
Just contemplating � without strife.
Strife knocks us down, it helps us rise.
In doing so, it makes us wise.
Were it not the Teacher Strife,
There would never be the Life!
Troubles
When some troubles trouble you, they seem
Bigger than they actually are.
There is an easy way to calm them:
Look at your troubles from afar.
The youth
The youth is like a splendid feast
Where everyone�s a welcome guest,
Where everyone is honored and loved
And gets the cherished best,
Where the most honored and best loved
Is one fir whom people dance�
And what a pity, to be that very one
Is possible only once!
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
LUGANO, August 16 (THE GLOBE)
�City is beautiful� but the incoming problems related to such a status are not of simple solution. This, at least, seems to be the conclusion of a study just published by the Swiss government on the quality of life in the Confederation.
First of all the report indicates that the large majority of Switzerland�s population dwells in urban conglomerations, while one third lives in countryside and mountainous areas. There are advantages, of course, for those preferring a city life to the quieter existence in villages and less populated environments. Among those, for instance, the concentration of economic activities that promote the development of cities and towns alike: working in the same area where one lives, saves a lot of time in non-commuting, favouring so free time activities that else would be sacrificed to hours spent in trains, busses and cars.
As the report points out, �large cities are the propulsion of the country� and even it ventures in comparing the biggest Swiss cities to other important cities of the Old Continent. So Basel keeps pace with Italy�s Venice, Zurich with France�s Lyon, Geneva with Italy�s Turin, Lausanne with Salonika in Greece and Bern with Liverpool in Britain.
Basel and Geneva, enjoying their enviable frontier line positions, are even more subject to further developments, making use of the infrastructures set just across the border by the neighbouring cities in Germany and France.
The reverse of the coin, however, raises preoccupations on a number of issues, large urban conglomerations need a lot of money to let services work and have the administrative machinery going. Finances lead the worrying theory with 31%, economy follows with 21%, preceding transportation (14%), social (12%) and environmental (8%) problems, none of them solvable without money injections from city taxpayers� pockets, who claim that their efforts are also beneficial to countryside inhabitants that do not contribute at all in such expenditures.
Life in Swiss cities: a mixed blessing indeed!
August 18 were born american actors Robert Redford (1937), Patrick Swayze (1954) and Christian Slater (1969). One day later, in 1946 was born Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America.
August 18, 1991 - Eight senior officials of the Soviet government, opposed to the sweeping reforms of recent years, stage a coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He is detained and troops are sent to Moscow, Leningrad, and the Baltics. However, the conspirators fail to arrest the popularly elected President of the Russian Republic Boris Yeltsin, who begins to rally opposition at the Parliament Building.
August 19, 1960 - Shot down over Sverdlovsk, Russia, American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced on this day to ten years in prison by the U.S.S.R. Powers serves two years of his sentence before being released in exchange for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
August 19, 1991 - On the second day of the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, coup leader and Soviet Vice President Gennady Yanayev announces that Gorbachev is suffering from �serious health problems� and is unfit to govern. Meanwhile, at the Parliament Building, Boris Yeltsin presides over a huge crowd of protesters that includes defecting government troops.
August 20, 1991 - Crowds of Russians protesting the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev raise the old white, blue, and red Russian flag around the Parliament Building. Tank divisions attempt to penetrate the area, but the protesters serve as a successful human shield.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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