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‘Mom’, ‘Maa’, ’Mae’, or ‘Haha’, the words might be different in different languages but signifies same everywhere: unconditional care, love, concern and sacrifice.

In each country and every culture, mothers are respected for their selfless devotion towards child. Mother’s day is the day to acknowledge her unconditional love, support, and the efforts in raising her kid. This day is celebrated across the globe though on different dates. In most of the countries, this day is celebrated on the second Sunday in the month of May. However, there are countries like Thailand, where Mother’s Day is celebrated on Twelfth August of every year.

The 12 August is Her Majesty Queen Sirikit’s birthday. This public holiday is celebrated nationwide as Mother’s Day -. Starting a few weeks before the Queen’s birthday, all buildings are covered up with Royal symbols and portraits of Her Majesty all over the Thai kingdom.

On 12 August, jasmine, symbolic of the selfless virtue of a mother who gives life to her children, is seen everywhere in Thailand.

Not only limited to birthday celebration of the Queen, Thai people also take this day as an opportunity to thank their dear mother for her unconditional love. Mother’s day morning in Thailand starts by giving alms to the monks. Following the Thai tradition, kids kneel down before their mother to show their love and gratitude. They present her with white jasmine flowers or garlands, in return, mother shower her blessings on kids. On this day, white jasmine flowers are a common sight in Thailand as they are the symbol of maternal love. The white color of the flower symbolizes purity of mother’s true love, which will never change. Charitable activities, donations, offering to monks are also an important part of the day to express child’s love and gratitude towards mother.

We’ve seen her in movies and been in awe of her performances, but what about this active and lively daughter of Jon Voight? She’s on a mission and doing some real things in the area of charitable causes. Here are some of the details, but first some background information

She’s won an Oscar. She’s been a professional model. She’s listed on countless “most beautiful women” lists. She trained and performed at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute following her mother Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg directly. She is a mother to six children and a natural beauty both inside and out.

While filming the movie ‘Tomb Raider’ in Cambodia, she became personally aware of worldwide humanitarian crises. Looking around for more information about what was happening and how she could help, she went to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This is the agency tasked with leading and coordinating international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. That was back in 2001. Since then, Angelina has been on field missions around the world and met with refugees and internally displaced persons in more than 20 countries. Here is a partial list of the places she’s been: Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Cambodia, Pakistan, Thailand, Ecuador, Kosovo, Kenya, Namibia, Sri Lanka, North Caucasus, Jordan, Egypt, New Delhi, Costa Rica, Chad, Syria, and Iraq. She just recently visited earthquake victims in Haiti on her latest trip to help survivors of conflict and natural disaster.

Along with her husband, she created The Jolie-Pitt Foundation. It is dedicated to eradicating extreme rural poverty, protecting natural resources and conserving wildlife. They donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders. Doctors Without Borders is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. They provide aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from healthcare, or natural disasters. The money Brad and Angelina donated was targeted for emergency medical assistance to help victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Angelina has a stated objective of “Awareness of the plight of these people. I think they should be commended for what they have survived, not looked down upon.” Because of her tireless efforts, in 2001 she was recognized and named a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, to help educate the public not only about the plight of refugees, but also about the perseverance and courage they show in overcoming all odds to rebuild their lives. Then again in 2003, she was the first person to receive the newly created Citizen of the World Award given out by the United Nations Correspondents Association to those who have made a significant contribution. It was initiated in 2003, in honor of Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was killed in the 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq. Furthermore, in 2005, she was awarded the Global Humanitarian Award by the United Nations Association of the USA for her work with UNHCR and with refugees. That same year, Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni awarded her Cambodian citizenship for her conservation work in the country.

More recently, she has become more involved in working with humanitarian causes on a political level. She has regularly attended World Refugee Day in Washington, D.C., dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world, and she was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum. In 2006, she began lobbying humanitarian interests in the U.S. capital, where she met with members of Congress at least 20 times since 2003. Angelina also works with the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict. This group helps fund education programs for children affected by conflict.

She is on the board of advisors for the Yéle Haiti Foundation, and with Brad Pitt took time to help Wyclef Jean with his Clean Streets project. Jolie also arranged a deal with People Magazine allowing them to print the first picture showing her visibly pregnant in exchange for a $500,000 donation to the charity. She has been travelling to refugee camps around the world since filming Tomb Raider. During her missions she has visited places including Darfur, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and Tanzania. She also visited Afghan refugees in Pakistan and donated $1 million to help. She covers all of her own costs while on missions, and shares the working and living conditions as the UNHCR field staff. She and Brad Pitt donated more than $8 million to charity in 2006 alone.

From this it is easy to see how hard she is working to help those in need. Instead of having the easy life, she’s found a greater fulfillment and satisfaction in making a difference in the lives of so many people in need. She sets a standard and example for us all. Great work, Angelina.

Called soccer in the USA and football in the rest of the world, the World Cup match is the annual event you have to see. Let’s look at how things are going so far as we browse tidbits of news that are surfacing.

Craig Brown says that “too many World Cup sides are playing negative football”. He knew the competition was in trouble when Brazil pulled back every man behind the ball against mighty North Korea. On average, there have been less than six shots on target per game – less than three for each team. That’s nowhere near good enough. Too many teams have been negative. They all get as quickly behind the ball as possible when they lose it – even Brazil. I couldn’t believe it when they all got back against North Korea the other night. It was almost as if they were too scared against a team who shouldn’t be able to live with them. There has been an alarming lack of quality. I think I’ve covered five matches and you can go 25 minutes without either team having a meaningful shot at goal. That’s simply not good enough in a World Cup.” Here’s where he gets to the heart of the matter, he says: “It’s almost as if every team is terrified of losing, rather than looking to win a football match through good play. When Scotland played Brazil at the opening game of France 1998 we were cautious but tried to score and did so through a John Collins penalty. There’s no way I’d ever have told the guys to go out and play for a 0-0. It seems that’s the message given by a lot of managers and coaches.” Maybe there is just too much pressure on the teams or things have become too commercialized. So many factors come into play, that when the pressure gets too high, priorities get changed and the true spirit of the game goes out the window.

Some of the teams are positioning themselves to qualify for the final round of 16. Uruguay, for example were victorious over South Africa and this brings them within touching distance of a place in the last 16.  The sour South African coach Carlos Alberto Parreira blasted the Swiss ref but insisted his team could still qualify. “I haven’t seen the penalty properly because there were players in front of me. But the players are annoyed. Everyone said it was the worst referee so far. He was giving yellow cards that were never bookings. He doesn’t deserve to be here. Everything will be decided now in the last game.”

In other news, Switzerland upset Spain, the European champion. The 1-0 win was not pretty. The Swiss spent much of the game frustrating successive waves of Spanish attacks on Wednesday. Gelson Fernandes’ scrappy goal, went past Spanish defender Gerard Pique, was classified as ‘ugly football’. Most say, however, that as ugly as the game was, at least it was interesting.

Siphiwe Tshabalala’s left-footed goal for South Africa or Maicon’s score that opened Brazil’s count against North Korea help to bring some excitement back to what has been, until now, a snoozer. Still, the scoring average is, by far, the lowest it has been since the World Cup expanded to 32 teams in 1998. The angst etched on the faces of England’s players before their 1-1 tie with the United States was an early warning of their constricted and frightened performance. And, not to belabor the point: “The games haven’t been that exciting,” says England striker Wayne Rooney, one of several stars who has yet to live up to expectations. “I’m hoping it gets more exciting.”

In all, players scored just 25 times in the initial games this year and are scoring at a lowly average rate of 1.56 goals per game. At the previous three World Cups, the first 16 games produced totals of 39, 46 and 37 goals, respectively, and the average-per-game never dropped lower than 2.3. Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, isn’t interested in discussing why this is happening. It says conclusions must wait until after the final on July 11. “Not now, it’s just too early,” FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot says. We are also holding back judgment until then. As in all sports, surprises can happen at the end making us regret taking our eyes off the game for even a moment. So, we’ll be watching.

Songkran is a Thai traditional New Year which starts on April 13 every year and lasts for 3 days. Songkran festival on April 13 is Maha Songkran Day or the day to mark the end of the old year, April 14 is Wan Nao which is the day after and April 15 is Wan Thaloeng Sok which the New Year begins. At this time, people from the rural areas who are working in the city usually return home to celebrate the festival. Thus, when the time come, Bangkok temporarily turns into a deserted city

Songkran is a Thai word which means “move” or “change place” as it is the day when the sun changes its position in the zodiac. It is also known as the “Water Festival” as people believe that water will wash away bad luck.

The Songkran tradition is recognized as a valuable custom for the Thai community, society and religions. The value for family is to provide the opportunity for family members to gather in order to express their respects to the elders by pouring scented water onto the hands of their parents and grandparents and to present them gifts including making merits to dedicate the result to their ancestors. The elders in return wish the youngsters good luck and prosperity.

The value for community is to provide the opportunity to create unity in the community such as to jointly acquire merits, to meet each other and to enjoy the entertaining events. And for the society value is to create concern upon environment with cooperation such as to clean houses, temples, public places and official buildings. Thais value the religion bye means of merits acquisition, offerings alms to monks, Dhamma Practice, listening to sermon and monks-bathing.

In the afternoon, after performing a bathing rite for Buddha images and the monks, the celebrants both young and old, joyfully splash water on each other. The most-talked about celebration takes place in the northern province of Chiang Mai where Songkran is celebrated from April 13 to 15. During this period, people from all parts of the country flock there to enjoy the water festival, to watch the Miss Songkran Contest and the beautiful parades.
In Bangkok, the Buddha image “Buddhasihing” is brought out from the National Museum for people to sprinkle lustral water at Sanam Luang, opposite the Grand Palace.

“An increasing body of observations gives
a collective picture of a warming world
and other changes in the climate system.”

FINGERPRINTS: Direct manifestations of a widespread and long-term trend toward warmer global temperatures

Heat waves and periods of unusually warm weather

Ocean warming, sea-level rise and coastal flooding

Glaciers melting

Arctic and Antarctic warming

HARBINGERS: Events that foreshadow the types of impacts likely to become more frequent and widespread with continued warming.

Spreading disease

Earlier spring arrival

Plant and animal range shifts and population changes

Coral reef bleaching

Downpours, heavy snowfalls, and flooding

Droughts and fires

The map of early warning signs clearly illustrates the global nature of climate changes. In its 2001 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that, �an increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system.”

While North America and Europe—where the science is strongest—exhibit the highest density of indicators, scientists have made a great effort in recent years to document the early impacts of global warming on other continents. Our map update reflects this emerging knowledge from all parts of the world.

Although factors other than climate may have intensified the severity of some of the events on the map, scientists predict such problems will increase if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not brought under control.

Stephen Gately, lead singer of boyband Boyzone, has been found dead in Majorca, where he was on holiday. He was 33-years-old.

Gately came out as gay in 1999, and was one of the first pop stars to do so. He married his partner,
Andrew Cowles, in a commitment ceremony in Las Vegas in 2003, and made it more formal with a British civil partnership in 2006.

From the Times:
Boyzone manager Louis Walsh told the News of the World: “We’re all absolutely devastated. I’m in complete shock. I was only with him on Monday at an awards ceremony. We don’t know much about what’s happened yet.

All four remaining members of Boyzone – Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Mikey Graham – will be flying to Palma, Majorca tomorrow.