UNWTO: World Tourism Day places focus on innovation & digital transformation by ETN, 7/18/18

The importance of digital technologies in tourism, providing opportunities for innovation and preparing the sector for the future of work, is at the center of World Tourism Day 2018, to be celebrated in Budapest, Hungary (27 September 2018).

This year's World Tourism Day (WTD) will help to put the opportunities provided to tourism, by technological advances including big data, artificial intelligence and digital platforms, on the map of sustainable development. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) sees digital advances and innovation as part of the solution to the challenge of marrying continued growth with a more sustainable and responsible tourism sector.

"Harnessing innovation and digital advances provides tourism with opportunities to improve inclusiveness, local community empowerment and efficient resource management, amongst other objectives within the wider sustainable development agenda", said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.

Great Stories.

Blue Magic

Dir. Yoel Morales

Directed by Yoel Morales, this sy fy movie is beautifully shot. In a remote part of a Caribbean island, completely cut off from modern technology, we find Moises. The love Moises feels for the girl from another moon gave him the strength to defeat his flesh-eating opponent.

Director Yoel Morales adds: 'the best way to tell our story was to deliver a fantasy movie, with a detailed focus on each character.' Release date: 2017, 76 minutes.

Trump using separated children to force "voluntary" deportations by Alec Andersen, 7/9/2018.

In response to a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of separated parents in the US District Court for the Southern District of California, the judge granted a temporary injunction ordering the reunification of all separated children with their parents within 14 days for the youngest children or 30 days for children five years or older on June 26.

The "Separated Parent's Removal Form" represents the Trump administration’s response to that order. Under the guise of a "voluntary agreement," ICE presents immigrant parents with an ultimatum: they may reunite with their children, who would then be deported along with the parents; or alternatively, parents may agree to waive their right to reunification and their children may be allowed to stay behind, ostensibly to exhaust any remaining avenues for the child to obtain legal status in the US.

Finance

Finance: IMF needs different mindset than its modified neoliberalism

Philip Alston

If the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to respond effectively in the years ahead to the challenges in a world in which both globalization and liberal democracy are increasingly under attack, it will need a different mindset from the modified neoliberalism that currently sets the parameters of its thinking.

This is the assessment of Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, in his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, which begins its thirty-eighth regular session on Monday (18 June). According to the Special Rapporteur, the current Managing Director (Christine Lagarde), like her predecessor, has championed major changes, including a newfound focus on issues such as inequality, gender equality, governance, climate change and social protection.