The Love Bridge, with it’s thousands of padlocks and messages from couples from all over the world, in Helsinki, capital of Finland. Photo credit: hovedsteder.blogg.no
The Finns live in the happiest country in the world, according to the UN World Happiness Report 2019. In second place is Denmark, with Norway in third place.
The report ranks 156 countries by factors such as economy, health, freedom and social security.
The ranking is based on surveys carried out by Gallup from 2016 to 2018. On the next places on the list are Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria.
‘Rakkauden silta – Kärlekens bro – Bridge of Love’ is the inscription on the brass plate of the railing on the “Love Bridge” in Helsinki. Photo credit: hovedsteder.blogg.no
Hip-hop artist Jay-Z is among the artists performing when the legendary Woodstock festival “resurrects” after 50 years.
The summer concert will be called Bethel Woods and will be held 16-18 August in Watkins Glen, New York.
Woodstock Music & Art Fair, generally known as Woodstock, was a rock festival held in the United States on 15-18 August, 1969. It was intended to be held in Woodstock, in the state of New York, but was moved to a dairy farm in the city of Bethel, New York. However, the name Woodstock was retained.
HRK Crown Prince Haakon of Norway. Photo credit: Julia Marie Naglestad/The Royal Court – www.kongehuset.no / Kongehuset
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Haakon of Norway will pay an official visit to the Pacific nations the Kingdom of Tonga, the Republc of Fiji, and to Samoa, from 5 to 11 April.
Hele Birken-arrangementet med boder og henting av startnummer ble i år flyttet fra Torget på Rena til starten på birkebeinerrennet på Tingstadjordet, ifølge nrk.no
Det 54 kilometer lange Birkebeinerrennet – Birken, er Norges mest tradisjonsrike turrenn på ski og går hvert år fra Rena til Lillehammer.
Moods of Norways velkjente tidligere symbol: den rosa traktoren. Foto: Wikipedia.org
Moods of Norway gjenoppstår som Moods og åpner butikk i Oslo, melder NRK. Selskapet gikk konkurs i 2017, men konkursboet ble kjøpt opp av flere av de ansatte, og det nye merket satser kun på herreklær.
Slottsfjell-festivalen i Tønsberg unngår konkurs, men kommer som ventet ikke til å arrangere festival i år, skriver NRK.no Dermed må festivalgjengerne vente til 2020 for å delta på en av Norges mest populære musikkfestivaler.
Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications of Taiwan (Republic of China) opened a regional office of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on March 15, the TaiwanNews.com website reported.
In accordance with the New Southbound Policy, the new office will manage tourism promotion in Vietnam, as well as Laos, and Cambodia.
The office’s first director, Chou Hsinyi, will aim to strengthen communications and relations with local travel agencies, airlines and media to organize activities that promoting tourism to Taiwan from Vietnam.
Vietnam is expected to see an increase in international travelers over the coming years, and the Tourism Bureau aims to make Taiwan an attractive destination for prospective travelers in Vietnam and neighboring countries.
Over the past four years, Taiwan has seen a significant increase in visitors from Vietnam. In 2015, there were reportedly over 146,000 Vietnamese tourists, while in 2018 that number had increased to over 490,000.
Coinciding with the opening of the Ho Chi Minh tourism office, Taiwan is also once again accepting Vietnamese citizens for a revised version of the “Kuan Hung Pilot Project” an e-visa program designed for short term visits to Taiwan for residents of Southeast Asia.
Vietnam was temporarily removed from the program after a large group of Vietnamese people disappeared in Taiwan last December and had to be tracked down and deported by the National Immigration Agency.
The current Kuan Hung visa program is set to run until the end of 2020.
His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, has opened the premises of the new UAE Embassy in Bogota, capital city of Colombia, on the sidelines of his official visit to Colombia, the Emirates News Agency website reported.
“The opening of the embassy translates the UAE’s keenness to boost prospects of cooperation with Colombia across different fields,” said H.H. Sheikh Abdullah after cutting the ribbon and raising the curtain, inaugurating the new premises of the embassy in the presence of Luz Stella Jara Portilla, Vice Minister of Foreign Relations of Colombia.
Portilla stressed that the opening of the embassy is a step forward on the path to bolstering the steadily growing relations between the two friendly nations.
Attending the opening was Salem Rashid Al Oueiss, the UAE Ambassador to Colombia.
Paris, Hongkong og Singapore deler førsteplassen på lista over verdens dyreste byer. Caracas, hovedstaden i Venezuela, er verdens billigste by, ifølge The Economist. Zürich og Geneve i Sveits, og København, er med blant verdens ti dyreste byer, mens Oslo har falt ut av lista.
Bystaten Singapore befester sin stilling som verdens dyreste by. Frankrikes hovedstad rykker opp en plass til samme nivå som Singapore, mens Hongkong i Kina rykker opp tre plasser. Dette er de tre dyreste byene i verden å bo i og å besøke, ifølge The Economists årlige undersøkelse Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), som er gjengitt av blant annet BBC og Bloomberg.
EIU sammenligner prisnivå i 133 byer verden rundt. Bare tre andre byer i Europa havner på topp-ti-listen: Zürich, Genève og København.
På topp-ti-listen, som egentlig består av elleve byer fordi Los Angeles og Tel Aviv deler tiendeplassen, gjør New York, og Osaka i Japan store hopp oppover.
Norges hovedstad var på femteplass i fjor, men er ikke på årets topp-ti-liste
Israel has opened its first ever embassy in the Rwandan capital city Kigali, offering support to the East Africa nation from health to education and agriculture, as well as communication technology including cyber-security.
“This country shares a lot of similarities with state of Israel and offers a lot of ground for mutual cooperation,” the Israeli ambassador Ron Adam said after meeting with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.
The two countries already have close ties, including being embroiled in a controversial 2018 deal that sought to deport African refugees and asylum seekers from Israel.
Israel said it could possibly send refugees to Rwanda, a proposal widely condemned by rights groups. Kigali always strongly denied any such deal.
Rwanda, a largely Christian nation, has said it is keen to encourage tourists to the country, especially to see its famous mountain gorillas.
Rwandair, the national airline, will begin direct flights to Israel in 2019.
Israel already has strong ties across East Africa, especially in Uganda and Kenya, but is expanding its diplomatic presence on the continent.
In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the majority-Muslim nation of Chad to restore diplomatic ties after a decades-long break.
