UNESCO Courier articles from December 1995

UNESCO Courier archives from December 1995

Jean Daniel: the state of the nation.(Interview)
December 1, 1995... The French writer and journalist Jean Daniel is founder-director of the Paris weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. He has been an ardent champion of the cause of human dignity and a lucid and critical observer of the events of the last half century. The...

Life below ground. (troglodyte communities)
December 1, 1995... Troglodyte communities down the centuries have created a little-known form of architecture that demonstrates exceptional versatility and resourcefulness Strictly speaking, troglodytes are people who live in caves hollowed out by human agency....

China: when loess means more. (dug-out villages)
December 1, 1995... An original solution to the challenge of living in a semi-desert climate, the dug-out villages of the Yellow River offer many advantages to their inhabitants More than forty million Chinese still live underground, most of them in the Huang Ho...

Italy: rocks in a hard place. (troglodyte dwellings in Matera, Italy)
December 1, 1995... During its chequered history the ancient rock-hewn town of Matera withstood many waves of invaders. The pressures of 20th-century life proved harder to cope with.... Pierced into the soft limestone cliffside of a deep ravine in the high hills...

Ethiopia's new Jerusalem. (Lalibela, Ethiopia)
December 1, 1995... Carved out of the living rock eight centuries ago, the churches of Lalibela are still a magnet for worshippers and pilgrims The rock churches of Lalibela, which are hewn out of the mass of red volcanic tufa that makes up the high plateau of...

Science that must be shared.
December 1, 1995... Science is a product of intellectual work by persons trained in reflection and analysis to venture beyond what is already known. This exercise in thinking requires a minimum number of conditions, the most important of which under present...

Protecting plant life.
December 1, 1995... The first European Conference on the Conservation of Wild Plants was held in September at Hyeres (France), at a time when 25,000 wild plants are threatened with extinction. The Conference, entitled "Planta Europa", was co-sponsored by Plantlife,...

Luxembourg: the balcony of Europe. (Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
December 1, 1995... A pocket-sized international airport; a fast-expanding money market; a European centre which houses the headquarters of the Secretariat of the European Parliament and other European institutions such as the Court of Auditors, the Court of Justice...