Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya — Rose is 17 months old. She weighs 15 pounds and looks the size of an American 5-month-old. She cannot sit up, walk or speak. She has the toothpick limbs and saucer eyes of the malnourished and the dull skin of dehydration.

In another corner is Caroline, a waifish 9-year-old who sleeps in a crib. She is a whispering, otherworldly child, pretty and fragile. Her parents are dead, and she is severely malnourished. I have just given her a teddy bear and accessories from a bag of toys we brought from the U.S. When I gave her the bear, she looked at me in disbelief. This, I realize, is probably the first time she has had a toy all her own. Now she sits in her crib slowly undressing and dressing the bear, over and over again.

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When the BBC Newsnight presenter visited Moldova, the poorest nation in Europe, to meet some of its few remaining Jews, she was stunned by how desperate their lives were. Here she reveals that, but for the courage of her persecuted grandparents, she could have been among them…

OK, I admit it. When I heard I was off to Moldova all I could think of was Amanda Carrington and that dishy Moldovan Prince Michael in Dynasty. It might have been subliminal memories of the dishy one that made me agree to go in the first place.

The episode, as Dynasty fans will recall, ends in a wedding-day massacre. Understandably, it’s not something the Moldovan tourist board makes much of.

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Oosawano town in Toyama Prefecture

Toyama city, is the political and economic hub of the prefecture, and the gateway to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. The area is very famous for its eastern medicine, particularly the “Han-Gon-Han”, mixture made from the extract of the musk bag of a deer, herbs and other animal medicinal sources.

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A Rock Art Site was discovered in Western Gilf Kebir in January 2003. This has become very popular among rock art enthusiasts as the paintings and engravings are well done and well preserved. It is a large semi circular shelter and is larger than Wadi Sora. Although it may take volumes to cover everything at this art site, these pictures have made a good job of showing what the place holds in store for you.

Art that includes negative handprints is one of the unique features of this site. Like in Wadi Sora, this site also has a few headless animals although their symbolism isn’t very clear. They have a combination of paintings and engravings where the figures are drawn using a combination of these methods. The paintings and the art in general is very detailed and everything is very well sheltered.

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Egypt’s antiquities chief announced he will formally demand that a 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti displayed at Berlin’s Neues Museum for 85 years be returned to its homeland.

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, found that the bust—one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt—was smuggled out of Cairo through fraudulent documents, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Hawass has been leading an aggressive campaign to reclaim treasures allegedly stolen from Egypt. Since assuming his role as head of antiquities in 2002, he has recovered some 5,000 artifacts.

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I once landed at a remote airstrip in southern Sudan. The pilot dropped me off and flew away, and I was alone with a long wait for the person who was to pick me up. As we flew in I had seen nothing but bush and rock; almost no sign of human habitation.

But as I sat and waited in the shade of a tree, an old man emerged from the bush. He greeted me as if I came every day and asked if I had brought any newspapers. I had not. But he did not seem to think his journey had been wasted. We sat and chatted and then, when conversation dried up, we just sat in the shade and stared across the wooded valley.

Anywhere else it would have felt awkward just sitting there in silence. But silent companionship is just fine in Africa. Just being with someone is perfectly normal. In Britain we shut ourselves off from other people and leave the lonely to themselves, especially at Christmas. Loneliness and depression are serious afflictions, created by the way we live.

Maybe we should learn from Africa. There, whenever I find myself alone, people join me, not necessarily to talk, or out of politeness to a stranger, but to have human company. What is awkward is to leave someone alone. To be alone is abnormal. When I have said I want to be alone people ask if I am ill.

A student friend from Ghana tells me that the first time she felt lonely was when she came to London. She is not the first African to have told me that. Africans arriving in Europe are shocked that we do not greet family, friends and colleagues every morning. The student had just been called by her mother in Ghana who had asked her — told her — to travel across London to spend Christmas with her aunt who was alone. That she should be alone on Christmas Day was unthinkable.

It is hard to be alone in Africa. Everyone has family. A person without relations is nothing. And family in Africa extends far beyond the truncated nuclear family of the Western world. Cousins several times removed are called brother or sister; distant in-laws are aunt or uncle.

While Westerners tend to shed family members, Africans greedily gather and hoard them. This extends horizontally but also vertically. The only time people are left alone is when they are left to die, but that is not universal. In some societies the family gathers round to shout their name repeatedly to retrieve them from death. And when people do die they must be given a proper send-off.

Relatives can be more powerful dead than alive. The explosion of interest in family history shows our need to know our ancestors, but in Africa ancestors have always played a role in decision making. In Africa’s spiritual world, ancestors are awake and watching your every move. They must be kept happy. If you upset them they won’t protect you.

Perhaps this is because, although these days nearly 50 per cent of Africans live in urban areas, they are still rural in culture. Outside South Africa, very few Africans have lost contact with the village they come from. So even in modern towns, village ways persist. You cannot be with others and not talk to them. Get on a bus and a conversation starts. Even in cities you can turn up unannounced and be welcomed.

Outside the cities, doors are open and visitors do not need to knock. In Uganda you call as you approach a house; in Ghana you just enter, although you don’t sit down without being invited. And inside the house all doors are left open. There is little privacy. However, I think it is deeper than the difference between rural and urban society.

Descartes wrote: cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. The African would say: cognatus sum ergo sum; I am related, therefore I am. There are two sayings from southern Africa that make the point: “A man is a man because of others” and “Life is when you are together, alone you are an animal”. John Mbiti, a Kenyan theologian, puts it like this: “I am because we are and, since we are, therefore I am.” These sayings are easily applicable to all Africa.

In southern Africa, the concept is called ubuntu: you are who you are through others. This does not just mean family or group. Ubuntu extends to all humanity, shared personhood and values. In the past, the worst punishment in many African societies was expulsion. To be excluded was worse than death.

This communalism ensures that no one is left alone, but it has negative side-effects. For example, distant family members can call on you for money. They will turn up unannounced and expect to receive hospitality. You cannot refuse. When rich men die, their fortune is pulled to pieces and squandered by the many people who can claim a gift from the departing relative. And in most families there is a delinquent who has broken the rules or is disliked. They — and their offspring — are excluded or tolerated, but exploited. These days, when labour is becoming more expensive, the traditional practice of taking the child of a poor relative into one’s family to help them has led to exploitation. Where the child is a girl it has even ended in a relationship of slavery and rape.

Communalism can also make societies deeply conservative. Where maintaining the community is the ultimate goal, important but divisive truths cannot be discussed for fear of creating a rift, so decisions are left untaken. And the African family ensures there is no such thing as a self-made man: the classic rootless entrepreneur of 19th-century Europe or America who tears up the rule book and builds a new world.

But despite these downsides, Africa’s traditional communalism has a lot to teach a world that suffers from loneliness and depression. Africa still possesses the sort of community that we talk about but rarely experience. And best of all, a society that does not leave its members to grow old and die neglected and alone.

Wooden church in the village Paltoga Vologda region, not far from Lake Onega. The church was built in 1733, and 19 th century is edged with boards, covered with iron and painted with white paint. In 1810, a number of built brick Znamenskaya church.

Last weekend began like a modern Christmas fairy tale for Starry Bush-Rhoads and John Rhoads and Jeramie Griffin and Megan Garrison: Two traveling couples using GPS navigation units took two SUVs on two shortcuts up two snowy backcountry Oregon roads.

Then the couples got stuck and wound up cold and hungry — staying that way until searchers, also using navigation units, tracked them down, finding them safe, grateful and skeptical of cheery-voiced GPS directions.

The Rhoadses were trapped for three days; Griffin and Garrison, with a toddler in tow, were stuck for 12 hours.

Search and rescue experts say such incidents are becoming more common and urge motorists to pack common sense when planning a winter drive and bring along something basic: a map.

Jim Wiens says his nephew, Griffin, set off from Lebanon with his wife and 11-month-old daughter around 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve, bound for Garrison’s family home in Maupin.

Before he left, he programmed a new Garmin GPS, a Christmas gift from his mother, to find the quickest route from Lebanon to central Oregon, some four hours away.

But Christmas morning, Wiens got a phone call from relatives saying the young couple never arrived in Maupin.

To figure out which road his nephew took, Wiens called a friend with a similar GPS unit. After typing in the Maupin address, the navigation system suggested a route through the forest that would have cut 40 miles off their trip.

“It was the old Santiam Highway, up in the Cascades,” said Wiens. “This is a summer road, not a winter road, and he didn’t know that.”

Wiens did what sheriff’s deputies might recommend: packing two vehicles with water, blankets, food and shovels. “We went well-prepared.”

More than once, Wiens almost turned back. But when he saw footprints along Forest Road 46 shortly after 4 p.m., about 17 miles from U.S. 26, he plowed through.

“My nephew came walking up the road. He gave me the biggest hug. They were at wits’ end. He broke down in my arms,” Wiens said.

Expecting a 3-hour, 40-minute highway drive, the couple wasn’t carrying food or water or warm clothes. Both adults tried to hike out for help and to get cell-phone service. The couple even recorded their final goodbyes on home video, he said.

“They were in rough shape when we found them,” Wiens said. “But they got home safe. We got the best Christmas present ever.”

Right around the time Wiens was celebrating, the Rhoadses were driving in their Toyota Sequoia four-wheel drive, heading home to Nevada after an Oregon vacation.

They had spent Christmas Eve in Redmond and set off to Bend and onto Oregon 31 — a straight shot to Reno. Veteran users of GPS navigation, they were surprised when the unit’s voice interrupted their drive.

“We knew the route we wanted to take,” said Bush-Rhoads, back home safely in Reno. “But after we were on 31 for about 25 miles, it said, ‘Turn right on County Road 24.’”

When they missed the turn, the GPS voice advised them to hang a U-turn.

“We didn’t know that it was a road that should have been closed. The only sign on the road, a little itty-bitty sign, said Not Winter Maintained.” But the road appeared passable in both directions.

The Rhoadses took the road and wound up in a wildlife refuge wilderness area in Lake County.

After the truck repeatedly got stuck in the snow, they spent first Friday night and then Saturday night in the truck.

A self-described “overpacker,” Bush-Rhoads had filled the vehicle with cold cuts, cheeses, crackers, carrots, fruit, nutrition bars and water.

“I do a lot of outdoor activities so we were prepared. But we knew it was a life and death situation.”

Rhoads, a consultant, suggested they try 9-1-1 again. This time, the call went through. But it took four calls before a Klamath County operator got their coordinates from triangulating the call from cell towers.

Rescuers arrived about 5:30 p.m. and winched them out of the snow.

Bush-Rhoads, a realtor, has two regrets: “We should have given someone our full itinerary, and we should have carried chains,” she said. “A GPS has its great pluses, but just like a dishwasher, it has its limitations.”

The Oregon State Police agrees, advising motorists to stay on well-known roads, especially when traveling in remote areas of the state.

“Know where you are going and know the conditions at that time,” said Lt. Gregg Hastings, spokesman for the state police. If you plan to drive on U.S. Forest Service roads, contact that agency first to make sure the area is safe for driving, he said.

Georges Kleinbaum, the state’s search and rescue coordinator, said the state regularly fields reports from motorists who followed their vehicles’ GPS into the wilderness. Kleinbaum said that typically, people who are lost or stranded contact authorities who are able to help them.

“Few make big news because they are easily resolved,” he said.

Kleinbaum said motorists shouldn’t rely solely on GPS. “Part of it is common sense. We hear stories about people being told to take a particular road and when they get there, it’s half-covered with rockfall and broken trees. That should be a warning sign that this is not a regularly maintained road. Motorists should follow their instincts.”

If the GPS directs you to a “tiny dirt road in the middle of nowhere,” think twice.

And, Kleinbaum suggests, don’t forget a map.

Giethoorn is a village in the Dutch province of Overijssel. Actually, the village consists of two parts and it is the old part of the village where there are no roads.  The village Giethoorn is special in the Netherlands because of it’s caracteristic wooden arch bridges and canals, in the center is not a road but a canal where you have to travel by boat.  All visitors are welcome to enjoy the beauty of sceneries while on a Whisper Boat. Most of these boats can transport up to 8 adults. You can spend some time on the lakes and arrange a picnic while enjoy swimming, sailing or windsurfing. Many houses have been built on islands and are only reachable over wooden bridges. Most houses have thatched roofs, the marshy areas provide a lot of reed. In former days only rich people had tiled roofs, for tiles were much more expensive than reed, now it’s the other way round: having a thatched roof costs a lot more money than have it covered with tiles. This is a very picturesque place to visit. The village has gotten some reputation with the rich and famous; actors, a cartoonist and an author have gone to live there.

Village Landscapes can bring new life to your existing landscape from simple projects to a complete landscape overhaul.

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet, Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods.

Landscape design elements can enhance your everyday life by adding points of interest to your yard, be it water features, pavers or stone to create a beautiful driveway or a retaining wall to define a patio.