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"Rather than degrading over time, natural systems become more effective over time." 🌿 Elizabeth Gray, CEO of the National Audubon Society, on why restored wetlands & mangroves outperform grey infrastructure the longer they're left to grow. Watch more on @WeDontHaveTime. https://t.co/Qrg1sNr3qw #Restoration #NatureBasedSolutions #Wetlands #Nospecificcountrycodesarepresentinthetweet.

AFRICA DAILY REPORT — 23 SEPTEMBER 2026 Major developments reported during the previous 24 hours 1. SOUTH SUDAN — Kiir dissolves transitional government ahead of December election Importance: 10/10 — Critical President Salva Kiir dissolved South Sudan’s transitional government after signing amendments that remove requirements to complete a permanent constitution and census before the long-delayed national election. The opposition has challenged the changes, while the move fundamentally reshapes the political framework ahead of what is intended to be the country’s first national election since independence. Source: Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-sudans-president-signs-election-law-changes-ahead-december-vote-2026-09-22/ Additional source: Africanews — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/22/south-sudan-president-dissolves-govt-as-controversy-engulfs-december-poll/ 2. SUDAN — US links Burhan’s UN visa to proposed ceasefire Importance: 9.5/10 — Very High The United States is withholding a visa for Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ahead of the UN General Assembly, according to Reuters sources, in connection with a US-backed proposal for a 90-day ceasefire that Khartoum has resisted. Sudan has asked the UN to intervene, and its foreign minister is expected to address the General Assembly instead if the dispute is not resolved. Source: Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-withholding-sudanese-leaders-visa-over-ceasefire-plan-sources-say-2026-09-22/ 3. SUDAN — Currency collapse deepens civilian economic crisis Importance: 9/10 — Very High Sudan’s pound has lost nearly half its value in army-controlled territory since May, trading at around 7,500 pounds to the dollar on the black market versus about 4,100 in May. Reuters links the collapse to the economic fragmentation created by the war, reduced state revenues and wartime spending. The depreciation is driving up the cost of basic goods and worsening hardship for civilians and returning refugees. Source: Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/currency-collapse-heaps-more-pain-civilians-divided-sudan-2026-09-22/ 4. DR CONGO — Government orders investigation into violence at anti-government protest Importance: 8.5/10 — Very High DR Congo’s justice minister ordered a judicial investigation into violence during the September 15 opposition protest in Kinshasa, including reports of injuries, arrests, property destruction and a death. The demonstration opposed a proposed constitutional change that could allow President Félix Tshisekedi to seek another term. Police used tear gas, while clashes were also reported between opposition demonstrators and pro-government groups. Source: Africanews — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/22/dr-congo-to-probe-violence-death-of-protestor-at-anti-govt-rally/ 5. RWANDA / BELGIUM — Diplomatic relations restored after 18-month rupture Importance: 8/10 — High Belgium and Rwanda have resumed diplomatic relations 18 months after breaking ties amid their dispute over the conflict in eastern DR Congo. The restoration is diplomatically significant because Belgium has been a prominent European actor in the Great Lakes region and relations deteriorated sharply over allegations concerning Rwanda’s role in the Congolese conflict. Source: Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/belgium-rwanda-resume-diplomatic-relations-after-drc-conflict-dispute-2026-09-22/ 6. LIBYA — Armed group shuts pipeline valve, reducing Sharara oil production Importance: 8/10 — High An unidentified armed group closed a valve on the pipeline connecting Libya’s major Al-Sharara oil field with Zawiya, reducing production. The National Oil Corporation warned that a prolonged shutdown could force it to declare force majeure and could also affect the Zawiya refinery. The disruption again demonstrates the vulnerability of Libya’s oil-dependent economy to armed-group pressure and political fragmentation. Source: Africanews — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/22/libya-oil-production-hit-after-armed-group-shuts-pipeline-valve/ 7. MOROCCO — Parliamentary election puts youth participation and social pressures in focus Importance: 7.5/10 — High Nearly 16 million registered voters are eligible to elect Morocco’s 395-member House of Representatives today. Youth disengagement is a major issue: Africanews/AFP reports that only around 4% of registered voters are aged 18–24. Employment, housing, public services and the legacy of the Gen Z-led protests are central themes surrounding the vote. Source: Africanews — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/23/i-expect-nothing-morocco-elections-test-young-peoples-faith-in-politics/ 8. TUNISIA — 2026 confirmed as hottest summer on record Importance: 7.5/10 — High Tunisia’s National Meteorological Institute says summer 2026 was the country’s hottest since records began in 1950. Average temperatures were about 2.9°C above the previous record, with prolonged heatwaves, exceptionally warm nights, water shortages and electricity cuts. Kairouan reached 49.7°C in July. Source: AFP via FMT — https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2026/09/22/tunisia-says-2026-summer-hottest-on-record 9. GUINEA — Exiled opposition leader says authorities revoked his passport Importance: 7/10 — Significant Guinean opposition figure Cellou Dalein Diallo says his passport was revoked as he prepared to travel from Abidjan to New York for meetings on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Diallo has lived in exile since 2022. His UFDG party was dissolved in March along with other opposition parties, adding the passport case to wider concerns about political restrictions under President Mamady Doumbouya. Source: Africanews — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/22/exiled-guinean-opposition-leader-says-his-passport-has-been-revoked/ 10. KENYA / AFRICA AT UNGA — Ruto presses for reform of global financial architecture Importance: 7/10 — Significant At the Partners for Multilateralism summit during UN General Assembly High-Level Week, Kenyan President William Ruto argued that international financial institutions should act more as catalysts for African capital rather than simply as lenders. The intervention forms part of a broader African push at UNGA for reforms to global financial governance and greater representation in multilateral institutions. Source: Africanews / AP — https://www.africanews.com/2026/09/22/ruto-pushes-for-global-finance-reforms-at-summit-for-multilateralism/ #Africa #AfricaNews #TopNewsOfAfrica #SouthSudan #SalvaKiir #SouthSudanElections #PoliticalTransition #TransitionalGovernment #ElectoralReform #AfricanPolitics #Tunisia #NorthAfrica #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #RecordHeat #ExtremeHeat #Heatwave #GlobalWarming #WaterScarcity #ClimateSecurity #Sudan #SudanConflict #AbdelFattahAlBurhan #UnitedStates #Ceasefire #PeaceNegotiations #Diplomacy #UnitedNations #UNGA2026 #AfricanSecurity #RegionalStability #Geopolitics #AfricaToday #wrldorg

Fredi Tomps, an influential figure in Estonian heritage conservation, dedicated nearly half a century to preserving and promoting Estonia's cultural and architectural legacy, leaving a profound impact through his involvement in various heritage projects and organizations, including the establishment of national parks and the restoration of historical sites. #FrediTomps #muinsuskaitse #EestiArhitektuur

"VILLA DI FARAGOLA": FROM ASCOLI SATRIANO TO THE UNITED STATES — PUBLISHED IN THE PRESTIGIOUS "POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY USA" SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/villa-di-faragola-from-ascoli-satriano-united-states-sardella-ph-d--pgd6f/ in the heart of apulia, buried for fifteen centuries beneath the wheat fields of the carapelle valley, lay one of the most opulent aristocratic residences of ancient italy: the villa of faragola, near ascoli satriano (fg). discovered in 2003 by the university of foggia and excavated under the direction of giuliano volpe and maria turchiano, this extraordinary late antique residence – almost certainly belonging to the cornelii scipiones orfiti, one of the most powerful senatorial families of the fourth century – has yielded wonders unique in their kind to scholars around the world. the best-preserved stibadium in italy: a sigma‑shaped masonry dining couch, decorated with gilded marble reliefs of dionysian theme, at the centre of a summer banqueting hall of incomparable luxury. a private bath complex of more than a thousand square metres – among the largest ever documented on the italian peninsula – with glass‑paste mosaics, opus sectile floors, and walls clad in polychrome marbles imported from tunisia, greece and the peloponnese. a cenatio aestiva where roman senators reclined along the curve of the dining couch while a fountain played among the marbles and the scent of the apulian countryside drifted in through the open colonnade. then, on the night between 6 and 7 september 2017, an arson attack – almost certainly criminal in origin – destroyed within hours the protective covering of the site, scorching the marble floors, warping the mosaics, and sweeping away decades of work. professor volpe, who was in kuala lumpur at the time, learned of the news via whatsapp early that morning. No one has ever been brought to trial but faragola did not surrender. thanks to funding of around three million euros, restoration work was completed in november 2024. the villa still bears the marks of the fire – and archaeologists have deliberately chosen not to erase them: that scar is now history, just as much as the senators’ banquets. the faragola archaeological park is now preparing for its second opening to the public. a magnificent article in the american magazine popular archaeology recounts the entire story – from the daunian roots of the site to its present‑day rebirth. it is truly worth reading.

IlSipontino.net: Herdonia, the “Pompeii of Apulia”, featured on Popular Archaeology (USA) SOURCE: https://www.ilsipontino.net/herdonia-la-pompei-di-puglia-in-un-articolo-pubblicato-oggi-su-popular-archaeology-usa/ In the golden heart of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, where the wheat still ripples beneath the very sky that once witnessed the passage of Hannibal’s armies and Trajan’s legions, Herdonia at last emerges onto the international stage: the ancient city that scholars, with equal admiration and regret, have long described as “the Pompeii of Puglia". Published in Popular Archaeology, the article by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella retraces, with both passion and scholarly rigour, the entire epic of this extraordinary site: from its Daunian origins in the Iron Age, marked by its celebrated anthropomorphic stelae and the earliest textile embroideries known in Italy, through the tragedy of the Punic Wars – two battles of Herdonia in the aftermath of Cannae – the Roman refoundation along the Via Traiana, and finally the hunting retreat of Frederick II of Swabia of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Only 20 per cent of its 20–24 hectares has been brought to light over sixty years of Belgian (Joseph Mertens, 1962–1992) and Italo‑Belgian excavations (University of Bari, Giuliano Volpe, 1993–2000). The remaining 80 per cent, preserved intact beneath the thin Puglian mantle, constitutes a living archive of history that could occupy archaeologists for the next century. After twenty‑two years of enforced silence due to a protracted legal dispute, the year 2022 marked a decisive turning point: the State acquired the entire area, allocating more than €2.7 million for restoration, enhancement, and the creation of the Archaeological Park of Herdonia. The HerMA Museum, inaugurated in 2017 just a short distance from the site, already welcomes thousands of visitors with its Daunian and Roman masterpieces, while the Polytechnic University of Bari has produced the first complete 3D model of the ruins. “Herdonia is not merely a site of the past; it is a place capable of narrating the whole of Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, without being overlaid by a modern city,” writes Magaldi Sardella. “It now finally possesses the conditions to become one of the great archaeological parks of our country.” The field lies open. Puglia has rediscovered its Pompeii. It is now for the world to uncover it.

SanGiovanniRotondoFree.it — Herdonia, the “Pompeii of Apulia”, Captivates America: Popular Archaeology Shines a Spotlight on the Tavoliere’s Hidden Treasure SOURCE: https://sangiovannirotondofree.it/2026/02/28/herdonia-la-pompei-di-puglia-conquista-lamerica-riflettori-di-popular-archaeology-sul-tesoro-nascosto-del-tavoliere/ In the golden heart of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, where the wheat still ripples beneath the very sky that once witnessed the passage of Hannibal’s armies and Trajan’s legions, Herdonia at last emerges onto the international stage: the ancient city that scholars, with equal admiration and regret, have long described as “the Pompeii of Puglia”. Published in Popular Archaeology, the article by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella retraces, with both passion and scholarly rigour, the entire epic of this extraordinary site: from its Daunian origins in the Iron Age, marked by its celebrated anthropomorphic stelae and the earliest textile embroideries known in Italy, through the tragedy of the Punic Wars – two battles of Herdonia in the aftermath of Cannae – the Roman refoundation along the Via Traiana, and finally the hunting retreat of Frederick II of Swabia of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Only 20 per cent of its 20–24 hectares has been brought to light over sixty years of Belgian (Joseph Mertens, 1962–1992) and Italo‑Belgian excavations (University of Bari, Giuliano Volpe, 1993–2000). The remaining 80 per cent, preserved intact beneath the thin Puglian mantle, constitutes a living archive of history that could occupy archaeologists for the next century. After twenty‑two years of enforced silence due to a protracted legal dispute, the year 2022 marked a decisive turning point: the State acquired the entire area, allocating more than €2.7 million for restoration, enhancement, and the creation of the Archaeological Park of Herdonia. The HerMA Museum, inaugurated in 2017 just a short distance from the site, already welcomes thousands of visitors with its Daunian and Roman masterpieces, while the Polytechnic University of Bari has produced the first complete 3D model of the ruins. “Herdonia is not merely a site of the past; it is a place capable of narrating the whole of Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, without being overlaid by a modern city,” writes Magaldi Sardella. “It now finally possesses the conditions to become one of the great archaeological parks of our country.” The field lies open. Puglia has rediscovered its Pompeii. It is now for the world to uncover it.

StatoQuotidiano.it — Herdonia, the “Pompeii of Apulia”, Captivates America SOURCE: https://www.statoquotidiano.it/28/02/2026/herdonia-la-pompei-di-puglia-conquista-lamerica/1289894/ The site, renowned for its millennia‑old history and its extraordinary archaeological heritage, takes centre stage in an in‑depth feature published today in Popular Archaeology by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella. In the golden heart of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, where the wheat still ripples beneath the very sky that once witnessed the passage of Hannibal’s armies and Trajan’s legions, Herdonia at last emerges onto the international stage: the ancient city that scholars, with equal admiration and regret, have long described as “the Pompeii of Puglia”. Published in Popular Archaeology, the article by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella retraces, with both passion and scholarly rigour, the entire epic of this extraordinary site: from its Daunian origins in the Iron Age, marked by its celebrated anthropomorphic stelae and the earliest textile embroideries known in Italy, through the tragedy of the Punic Wars – two battles of Herdonia in the aftermath of Cannae – the Roman refoundation along the Via Traiana, and finally the hunting retreat of Frederick II of Swabia of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Only 20 per cent of its 20–24 hectares has been brought to light over sixty years of Belgian (Joseph Mertens, 1962–1992) and Italo‑Belgian excavations (University of Bari, Giuliano Volpe, 1993–2000). The remaining 80 per cent, preserved intact beneath the thin Puglian mantle, constitutes a living archive of history that could occupy archaeologists for the next century. After twenty‑two years of enforced silence due to a protracted legal dispute, the year 2022 marked a decisive turning point: the State acquired the entire area, allocating more than €2.7 million for restoration, enhancement, and the creation of the Archaeological Park of Herdonia. The HerMA Museum, inaugurated in 2017 just a short distance from the site, already welcomes thousands of visitors with its Daunian and Roman masterpieces, while the Polytechnic University of Bari has produced the first complete 3D model of the ruins. “Herdonia is not merely a site of the past; it is a place capable of narrating the whole of Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, without being overlaid by a modern city,” writes Magaldi Sardella. “It now finally possesses the conditions to become one of the great archaeological parks of our country.” The field lies open. Puglia has rediscovered its Pompeii. It is now for the world to uncover it.

FoggiaReporter.it: Ordona, the “Pompeii of Apulia”: Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella’s contribution on Popular Archaeology USA SOURCE: https://www.foggiareporter.it/ordona-la-pompei-di-puglia-su-popular-archaeology-lintervento-del-dr-luciano-magaldi-sardella.html Destined to become one of the largest archaeological parks in Italy. In the golden heart of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, where the wheat still ripples beneath the very sky that once witnessed the passage of Hannibal’s armies and Trajan’s legions, Herdonia at last emerges onto the international stage: the ancient city that scholars, with equal admiration and regret, have long described as “the Pompeii of Puglia”. Published in Popular Archaeology, the article by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella retraces, with both passion and scholarly rigour, the entire epic of this extraordinary site: from its Daunian origins in the Iron Age, marked by its celebrated anthropomorphic stelae and the earliest textile embroideries known in Italy, through the tragedy of the Punic Wars — two battles of Herdonia in the aftermath of Cannae — the Roman refoundation along the Via Traiana, and finally the hunting retreat of Frederick II of Swabia of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Only 20 per cent of its 20–24 hectares has been brought to light over sixty years of Belgian (Joseph Mertens, 1962–1992) and Italo‑Belgian excavations (University of Bari, Giuliano Volpe, 1993–2000). The remaining 80 per cent, preserved intact beneath the thin Puglian mantle, constitutes a living archive of history that could occupy archaeologists for the next century. After twenty‑two years of enforced silence due to a protracted legal dispute, the year 2022 marked a decisive turning point: the State acquired the entire area, allocating more than €2.7 million for restoration, enhancement, and the creation of the Archaeological Park of Herdonia. The HerMA Museum, inaugurated in 2017 just a short distance from the site, already welcomes thousands of visitors with its Daunian and Roman masterpieces, while the Polytechnic University of Bari has produced the first complete 3D model of the ruins. “Herdonia is not merely a site of the past; it is a place capable of narrating the whole of Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, without being overlaid by a modern city,” writes Magaldi Sardella. “It now finally possesses the conditions to become one of the great archaeological parks of our country.” The field lies open. Puglia has rediscovered its Pompeii. It is now for the world to uncover it.

FOGGIASERA.it, HERDONIA SU POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY USA SOURCE: https://foggiasera.it/2026/02/27/the-archaeological-site-of-herdonia-the-pompeii-of-puglia-su-popular-archaeology-usa/ In the golden heart of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, where the wheat still sways beneath the very sky that once witnessed the passage of Hannibal’s armies and Trajan’s legions, Herdonia at last steps onto the international stage: the ancient city that scholars, with equal admiration and regret, have long described as “the Pompeii of Puglia". Published in Popular Archaeology, the article by Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella retraces with both passion and scholarly rigour the full epic of this extraordinary site: from its Daunian origins in the Iron Age, with its celebrated anthropomorphic stelae and the earliest textile embroideries known in Italy, through the tragedy of the Punic Wars (two battles of Herdonia following Cannae), the Roman refoundation along the Via Traiana, and finally the hunting retreat of Frederick II of Swabia. Only 15-20 per cent of its twenty-twenty-five hectares has been brought to light across sixty years of Belgian (Joseph Mertens, 1962–1992) and Italo‑Belgian excavations (University of Bari, Giuliano Volpe, 1993–2000). The remaining 80 per cent, preserved intact beneath the thin Apulian mantle, constitutes an archive of living history that could occupy archaeologists for the next century. After twenty‑two years of enforced silence due to a protracted legal dispute, the year 2022 marked a decisive turning point: the State acquired the entire area, allocating more than €2.7 million for restoration, enhancement, and the creation of the Archaeological Park of Herdonia. The HerMA Museum, inaugurated in 2017 a short distance from the site, already welcomes thousands of visitors with its Daunian and Roman masterpieces, while the Polytechnic University of Bari has produced the first complete 3D model of the ruins. “Herdonia is not merely a site of the past: it is a place capable of narrating the whole of Italy, from prehistory to the Middle Ages, without being overlaid by a modern city,” writes Magaldi Sardella. “It now finally possesses the conditions to become one of the great archaeological parks of our country.” The field lies open. Puglia has rediscovered its Pompeii. It is now for the world to uncover it.

The Psychologist – The British Psychological Society – When Walls Become Wellness SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/psychologist-british-psychological-society-when-walls-sardella-ph-d--pu8sf/ Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella and Professor Matteo Mantuano on how ‘Stramurales Participatory Street Art’ transforms urban mental health. Link: https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/when-walls-become-wellness The Psychologist, The British Psychological Society by esteemed Dr. Joe Sutton, Head of Science Communication at BPS Contenuto dell’articolo On a sweltering afternoon in June 2018, we stood in the central square of Stornara, a small agricultural town in Puglia, Southern Italy, watching something extraordinary unfold. Local artist Lino Lombardi was facilitating a heated discussion among residents about which mural designs should adorn their town's crumbling walls. What struck us wasn't the art itself, but the transformation we witnessed in the eyes of people who, just months before, had described their hometown as a place to escape. These were individuals reclaiming their narrative, voting on their future, literally painting over decades of decline. We are environmental and community psychologists who have spent over a decade studying how built environments shape mental health outcomes. Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella's research focuses on participatory arts interventions in declining rural communities, while Professor Matteo Mantuano specialises in the psychological mechanisms of community empowerment and collective agency. When we first learned about the Stramurales festival in early 2018, we recognised it as a rare opportunity to observe participatory urban art as a potential tool for addressing the mental health crisis plaguing Southern Italy's depopulating towns. Over the past seven years, we have conducted extensive fieldwork in Stornara – interviewing residents, documenting the festival's evolution, and analysing its psychological and social impacts. What we found in Stornara was something far more significant than an innovative community-led arts initiative. It was environmental psychology in action – reshaping how we understand the relationship between built environments, participatory arts, and mental health. The Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight Recent research reveals an alarming convergence of environmental and mental health crises that remains curiously underexamined in psychological discourse. Mental health research receives a mere 2.3 per cent of overall National Institute of Health funding. We cannot know how much of that concerns our environments – both natural and built – which fundamentally shape our psychological wellbeing. The newly proposed field of 'EnvironMental Health' emphasises that deteriorating built environments correlate significantly with elevated stress, social isolation, and worsening mental health outcomes. Southern Italy's rural communities embody this crisis. Between 2002 and 2017, South Italy region lost approximately two million residents to migration, predominantly young adults aged 15-34. This exodus created what Johan Galtung described as 'structural violence' – systematic arrangements preventing communities from realising their potential. The mental health toll manifests not just in individual diagnoses, but in collective despair, eroded social capital, and communities watching their futures literally emigrate. Stornara exemplified this trajectory. By 2017, this municipality of 6,000 residents faced the familiar spiral: economic contraction precipitating youth emigration, accelerating infrastructure deterioration, driving further decline. Walls crumbled. Businesses shuttered. Hope evaporated. Then something changed. The Stramurales Revolution: Democracy through Design What emerged in Stornara transcends conventional cultural tourism. The Stramurales International Street Art Festivalworks through three foundational democratic mechanisms that distinguish it from superficial beautification projects. Organised through Stornara Life APS – an open-membership association founded by Maestro Lino Lombardi – the festival prevents elite capture through voluntary property owner participation ensuring no coercion; democratic content selection through annual community voting on festival themes and mural proposals; and transparent, inclusive governance that gives all residents a voice in the festival's direction. This participatory architecture facilitates what the World Health Organization describes as 'community empowerment' – processes enabling communities to increase control over determinants affecting their health. Recent field studies in Vienna demonstrate that urban art interventions reduce stress and anxiety while improving mood states, but Stramuralesgoes further by embedding art creation within democratic decision-making structures. When residents voluntarily offer walls and vote on content, they perform acts of material and psychological investment. This restoration of collective agency – the belief that residents can shape their hometown's future rather than merely witnessing decline – directly addresses the structural violence that erodes mental health. Between 2020 and 2025, Stornara experienced a huge increase in tourism revenue despite pandemic disruption. New businesses opened. A Stornara-born emigrant who returned reluctantly in 2017 to provide parental care, now works as a tour guide and describes Stornara as 'the coolest town in Italy'. These aren't just economic indicators. They're mental health outcomes. The Science behind the Transformation Contemporary research across multiple disciplines validates what Stornara residents experience viscerally. A 2024 systematic review examining 79 peer-reviewed articles identified how arts places – from permanent museums to temporary public installations – stimulate community engagement, enhance cultural identity, and foster social cohesion. Community-driven mural projects specifically strengthen local identity and pride, creating new routines for individuals to interact and build relationships. Recent experimental research in Berlin found that sidewalk-level art exhibitions significantly altered visitors' connection to and satisfaction with their neighbourhoods, improving overall wellbeing. This aligns with emerging theories on art viewing's impact on mental health, which identifies five key mechanisms: affective processes regulating emotions and stress; cognitive processes providing sensory stimulation and learning; social processes creating shared experiences; self-transformation through reflection; and resilience building for coping with challenges. Environmental psychology research demonstrates that built environments operate as therapeutic interventions. Studies on mental health inpatient facilities reveal that design elements affecting privacy, control, daylight access, and particularly the inclusion of artwork significantly impact patient outcomes. If hospital walls matter therapeutically, how much more do the walls we encounter daily in our communities? The Stramurales model harnesses these mechanisms through the recent concept of 'visual health activism'. Several murals explicitly engage health and human rights themes: Alaniz Niz's 'Refuge for All Migrants' represents exploited African agricultural workers; Sabotaje al Montaje's 'Turning Our Backs on Migration' challenges exclusionary policies; Devil Art Design's 'African Child at Sunset' portrays migrant youth seeking dignified futures. These works address social determinants of health through human rights advocacy. Migration policies denying basic rights create health vulnerabilities – including restricted healthcare access, hazardous working conditions, and psychological trauma from discrimination. The murals perform dual public health functions, in addressing residents' mental health while advocating for populations whose health rights face systematic violation. Place Attachment and Community Resilience The relationship between environmental perception, cultural identity, and community resilience has received substantial scholarly attention in 2024-2025. Research in rural China demonstrates that environmental perception of public spaces influences community resilience through chain mediating effects of cultural identity and place attachment. When communities transform their physical environments through participatory processes, they simultaneously strengthen the psychological bonds that underpin resilience. This explains why Stramurales succeeds where traditional economic development approaches falter. The festival doesn't just create economic value – though over 150 murals by international artists now attract thousands of visitors annually. It fundamentally reshapes residents' relationship with their environment, transforming narratives of decline into evidence of vitality. Each democratically selected mural becomes what resilience researchers call an 'anchor of hope' – tangible proof contradicting despair. Contemporary resilience theory emphasises that strength resides not merely in physical infrastructure but in social cohesion. A recent analysis of resilient urban design in marginalised American neighbourhoods found that residents' message – 'We like our neighbours, we like the character of where we live' – revealed that resilience is fundamentally about people and community. Design interventions succeed when they preserve and strengthen these social bonds, rather than imposing external visions. Stramurales embodies this principle. The democratic voting mechanisms ensure art reflects genuine community values rather than artist or curator preferences. This prevents the cultural displacement often accompanying urban regeneration, where improvements benefit newcomers while alienating existing residents. By centering resident agency, Stramuralesbuilds what researchers describe as 'critical resilience' – capacity addressing underlying inequalities rather than merely adapting to them. The Participation Gap and Universal Access These findings resonate profoundly with longstanding concerns about arts accessibility. The 2015 Warwick Commission documented that the wealthiest, most educated 8 per cent of the UK population accounted for 44 per cent of live music attendance and 28 per cent of visual art visits. This participation gap particularly affects communities that would benefit most from arts engagement for health and wellbeing. But Stramurales challenges this narrative. Street art as public health infrastructure requires no admission fees, no advance booking, no cultural capital to appreciate. It exists where people live, transforming daily commutes into encounters with beauty and meaning. The democratic selection process ensures accessibility extends beyond consumption to co-creation – residents don't just view art, they determine what appears on their walls. Recent research on participatory arts and social cohesion emphasises that successful interventions share common features: delivery in local communities, non-stigmatising approaches, flexibility, promoting social engagement, involvement of exhibitions, and delivery within specific timeframes. Stramurales incorporates all these elements while adding genuine democratic governance. This matters urgently. Mental health conditions among young people globally are rising, and traditional mental health services remain chronically underfunded. If we cannot scale clinical interventions to meet demand, we must invest in preventive public health approaches targeting social determinants. From Stornara to the World: Implications for Practice The Stramurales model offers a replicable template requiring modest financial investment but substantial community participation. Essential elements include voluntary engagement, democratic decision-making, strategic social media use for marketing, and integration of local narratives with global artistic practices. Several cities have implemented variations with promising results. Research on artistic interventions in urban spaces across Europe and Asia demonstrates that participatory art projects can serve as 'social prescribing', improving psychological resilience and enhancing public engagement. Tactical urbanism approaches – small-scale, low-cost interventions improving public spaces – increasingly incorporate art as core rather than supplementary elements. The implications extend beyond individual communities. International frameworks including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enshrine rights to health and cultural participation. State obligations to conserve, develop and diffuse culture should support community-driven cultural initiatives demonstrably impacting health outcomes. As pandemic governance analyses emphasise, future health policy reforms must address not only biomedical preparedness but underlying vulnerabilities in community resilience and social cohesion. Street art operating through participatory structures directly strengthens these dimensions. What Psychologists Can Do We have roles to play at multiple levels. First, we must conduct research documenting the mental health impacts of participatory arts interventions. While promising evidence exists, methodologically rigorous studies with adequate sample sizes and long-term follow-up remain scarce. We need experimental designs, not just observational studies, examining mechanisms through which environmental transformations affect psychological outcomes. Second, we should advocate for policy recognising arts engagement as health intervention. This means supporting public health funding for community arts initiatives, particularly in economically deprived areas where traditional development approaches have failed. We should work with urban planners, architects, and artists to integrate participatory arts into neighbourhood regeneration from inception, not as afterthoughts. Third, we must ensure interventions embody genuine participation rather than tokenistic consultation. The Stramuralesmodel succeeds because residents hold real power. Without this, arts interventions risk replicating existing power structures and potentially accelerating gentrification that displaces the communities they ostensibly serve. Fourth, we should employ arts-based research methods that centre community voices. Collaborative approaches like participatory theatre, photovoice, and collaborative poetics enable communities to articulate their experiences and aspirations in ways traditional psychological assessments cannot capture. These methods acknowledge that communities possess expertise about their own needs and potential solutions. Finally, we must situate arts interventions within broader frameworks addressing social justice. Art should not function as a 'sticking plaster' masking underlying inequalities. Instead, we should harness arts' disruptive potential to promote what researchers term 'critical resilience' – capacity challenging systemic injustices rather than merely helping people adapt to them. This means addressing not just symptoms (mental distress) but causes (structural violence, economic abandonment, policy failures). Reimagining Health Infrastructure The Stramurales case compels fundamental reconsideration of what constitutes health infrastructure. We typically envision clinics, hospitals, pharmacies – biomedical institutions delivering treatments for diagnosed conditions. But what if the most effective mental health intervention for a declining community isn't a new psychiatric facility, but democratic processes enabling residents to transform their visual environment? Walls covered with democratically selected art, created through genuine community participation, demonstrably improve community mental health while operationalising cultural rights described in international law. The modest financial investment required pales beside costs of clinical services treating preventable distress. For communities experiencing decline where traditional economic development has failed, participatory street art may offer the most cost-effective, accessible, and sustainable mental health intervention available. This isn't about romanticising art or dismissing serious mental illness requiring clinical care. It's about acknowledging that population mental health requires addressing social determinants – and that participatory arts targeting built environments, social capital, and collective agency directly address these determinants. The question facing psychology isn't whether art can function as health intervention – Stramurales and growing evidence demonstrate it can. Rather, the question is whether we possess imagination to rethink health infrastructure, recognising that effective mental health promotion may require democratic decision-making and community participation as much as clinical expertise. As we watched Stornara residents voting on murals that June afternoon, we witnessed people exercising a fundamental human capacity too often denied in our field: the power to shape their own environments and, through that shaping, to heal. Perhaps that's the most vital lesson Stramurales offers psychology – that sometimes the most therapeutic intervention isn't administered by professionals, but created by communities reclaiming their agency… one democratically selected wall at a time. Dr Luciano Magaldi Sardella holds a PhD in Cognitive Leadership at Aspire Institute, Harvard Business School. Professor Matteo Mantuano is Professor of Social Sciences and Psychoeducational Health, Unitré University of Milan, Italy. Photo: 'Kid trapped in a box' mural by Leticia Mandragora References: All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (2017). Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing (2nd ed.). Belfiore, E. & Bennett, O. (2024). The social impact of the arts: An intellectual history. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bone, J.K., Bu, F., Fluharty, M.E., Paul, E., Sonke, J.K. & Fancourt, D. (2024). Who engages in the arts in the United States? A comparison of several types of engagement using data from The General Social Survey. PLOS ONE, 19(1), e0296743. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0296743 Chatterjee, H.J. & Noble, G. (2024). Museums, health and well-being: A preliminary report for Phase I. UCL Museums & Public Health Research Group. Cohen, G.D., Perlstein, S., Chapline, J., Kelly, J., Firth, K.M. & Simmens, S. (2006). The impact of professionally conducted cultural programs on the physical health, mental health, and social functioning of older adults. The Gerontologist, 46(6), 726–734. Daykin, N., Mansfield, L., Meads, C., Julier, G., Tomlinson, A., Payne, A., Grigsby Duffy, L., Lane, J., D'Innocenzo, G., Burnett, A., Kay, T., Dolan, P., Testoni, S. & Victor, C. (2024). What works for wellbeing? A systematic review of wellbeing outcomes for music and singing in adults. Perspectives in Public Health, 138(1), 39–46. doi:10.1177/1757913917740391 Fancourt, D. & Finn, S. (2019). What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review. World Health Organization, Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report 67. Flores González, L.M. & Rodríguez Sánchez, I. (2024). The transformative power of art in marginalized communities: Case studies from Latin America. International Journal of Community Well-Being, 7(2), 145–167. Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167–191. Hart, A., Gagnon, E., Eryigit-Madzwamuse, S., Cameron, J., Aranda, K., Rathbone, A. & Heaver, B. (2016). Uniting resilience research and practice with an inequalities approach. Sage Open, 6(4), 1–13. Johnson, H., Carson-Apstein, E., Banderob, S. & Macualay-Rettino, X. (2017). 'You kind of have to listen to me': Researching discrimination through poetry. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum Qualitative Social Research, 18(2). doi:10.17169/fqs-18.3.2864 Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182. Kim, J. (2017). Effects of community-based group music therapy for children exposed to ongoing child maltreatment and poverty in South Korea: A block randomized controlled trial. Arts Psychotherapy, 54, 69–77. doi:10.1016/j.aip.2017.01.001 Li, Y., Zhang, H. & Chen, T. (2024). Environmental perception, cultural identity and community resilience: Chain mediating effects of place attachment in rural China. Journal of Rural Studies, 98, 103– 115. Marmot, M., Atkinson, T., Bell, J., Black, C., Broadfoot, P., Cumberlege, J., Diamond, I., Gilmore, I., Ham, C., Meacher, M. & Mulgan, G. (2010). Fair society, healthy lives: The Marmot Review. Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England Post-2010. Mulligan, M., Scanlon, C. & Welch, N. (2008). Renegotiating community life: Arts, agency, inclusion and wellbeing. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 1, 99–115. doi:10.5130/ijcre.v1i0.591 Neelands, J., Belfiore, E., Firth, C., Hart, N., Perrin, L., Brock, S., Holdaway, D. & Woddis, J. (2015). Enriching Britain: Culture, creativity and growth. The 2015 Report by the Warwick Commission for the Future of Cultural Value. Packer, J. & Ballantyne, R. (2024). The role of museums and art galleries in promoting wellbeing: Insights from the United Kingdom and Australia. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 30(3), 234–251. Papies, E.K., Best, M., Gelibter, E. & Stroebe, W. (2024). The role of mental simulation in desire and motivation: A systematic review. Motivation Science, 10(1), 1–18. Pykett, A.A., Osborne, T., Resch, B., Nielek, R., Krukar, J. & Malleson, N. (2024). From smart to sustainable cities: The role of environmental psychology in urban transformation. Cities, 144, 104644. Roe, J. & Aspinall, P. (2024). The restorative benefits of walking in urban and rural settings in adults with good and poor mental health. Health & Place, 71, 102654. Stuckey, H.L. & Nobel, J. (2010). The connection between art, healing, and public health: A review of current literature. American Journal of Public Health, 100(2), 254–263. Theorell, T. (2024). Psychological health effects of musical experiences: Theories, studies and reflections in music health science. Stockholm: Springer Nature. Ulrich, R.S., Simons, R.F., Losito, B.D., Fiorito, E., Miles, M.A. & Zelson, M. (1991). Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 11(3), 201–230. Van den Berg, A.E., Wesselius, J.E., Maas, J. & Tanja-Dijkstra, K. (2024). Green space as a buffer between stressful life events and health: A longitudinal analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 310, 115270. WHO (2019). WHO housing and health guidelines. Geneva: World Health Organization. Zarobe, L. & Bungay, H. (2024). The role of arts activities in developing resilience and mental wellbeing in children and young people: A rapid review of the literature. Perspectives in Public Health, 137(6), 337–347. doi:10.1177/1757913917712283.

RUSSIA’S RESTORATION & REVENGE 1996 → 2001 → 9/11 Putin did not simply “appear” in the Kremlin. His rise happened through a sequence of crises that transformed a weak post-Soviet Russia into a centralized security state. 1996: Yeltsin survives a shaky reelection. 1998: the https://t.co/CRfLl3lz5I #Putin #Russia #History #RU

SpaceX has just officially announced Starbase, Louisiana, a new $100+ billion spaceport in South Louisiana near Pecan Island. Construction starts in 2027, with the first Starship launch from the new site planned for 2029. Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year. This self-sustaining spaceport will have propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities, vehicle processing facilities, and an airport. SpaceX is committed to investing at least $100 billion and creating more than 3,000 new jobs at Starbase, Louisana hiring heavily from nearby communities and utilizing Louisiana workers’ extensive experience of building complex infrastructure in their unique environment. In Vermilion Parish, the shoreline is eroding between 3.3 and 23 feet per year. SpaceX is partnering with state and federal agencies to expand Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan and Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act projects, including Gulf shoreline protection breakwaters designed to reduce wave energy and slow loss along the Gulf edge. https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/2092285684333625550

Rabaa: The Hour the World’s Conscience Stood Still On the anniversary of one of the largest single-day killings of protesters in modern history, one question remains unanswered: who will be held accountable? By Adham Hasanin Egyptian journalist and political writer, based in the Netherlands On 14 August, the anniversary returns of a day unlike any other in modern Egyptian history. Not simply because it was the bloodiest Egypt has known wars and massacres before and since ,but because it was the day a state chose to open fire on its own people in broad daylight, in front of the world’s cameras, and then let thirteen years pass without a single officer ever being held accountable. This article will not be a cold recitation of statistics, though the statistics exist, are documented, and are horrifying. It is an attempt to understand something deeper: how a square in the heart of Cairo, filled with tents, children, and worshippers, became the site of the largest mass killing the Arab world has witnessed in the past decade and why the echo of that day still reverberates in every Egyptian prison cell today. I. A Morning That Began Like Any Other For readers unfamiliar with the background: in July 2013, the Egyptian military, led by then-General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, removed Mohamed Morsy Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who had taken office in 2012 following the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. In response, tens of thousands of Morsy’s supporters staged an open-ended sit-in demanding his reinstatement. By 14 August 2013, more than twenty thousand people had spent weeks camped out at two Cairo squares, Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda, in a peaceful sit-in. They were not an army, nor a uniform bloc; they were entire families men, women, and children, some affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, many simply ordinary citizens who saw the restoration of elected legitimacy as a cause worth the risk. There were tents for sleeping, communal kitchens feeding the demonstrators, speaking platforms, and a small field clinic that no one imagined would, within hours, become one of the most terrifying places in modern Egyptian history. In the early hours of that morning, Central Security Forces and army units, under the command of then-General Sisi, began what was officially described as a "dispersal" operation targeting both sit-ins simultaneously. It was not a dispersal in any ordinary sense of the word. According to a year-long investigation by Human Rights Watch, it was a pre-planned operation that anticipated, from the outset, thousands of deaths. II. The Numbers the Regime Refuses to Speak The Egyptian government, to this day, cites a death toll of "over 600" for that single day a figure that, even at its official lowest, is horrifying enough to warrant an independent international investigation. But the field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch, drawing on field hospital records, survivor testimony, and analysis of video footage from dozens of angles, arrived at a far more disturbing figure: at least 817 people killed at Rab’a Square alone, with the true toll likely exceeding 1,000, plus another 87 killed at the nearby al-Nahda Square. When the deaths from the weeks surrounding 14 August are added from the dispersal of the Republican Guard sit-in on 8 July, through the Mansoura Street killings, to the dispersal of an October 6 march the combined total reaches at least 1,150 deaths in just six weeks, according to Human Rights Watch’s meticulous documentation. This figure led the organisation to use a term not deployed lightly in international law: crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch described the Rab’a killings as "one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history." Not in Egyptian history alone in modern history as a whole. What happened at Rab’a is cited in international reporting alongside China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. This is the true scale of what the Egyptian state has spent thirteen years trying to minimise, justify, and reduce to a mere "security incident" in a news bulletin. III. "All According to Plan" When Mass Killing Becomes Administration, Not Chaos The title Human Rights Watch chose for its detailed report on the massacre deserves lingering on: "All According to Plan." This is not an emotive headline; it is a precise legal conclusion built on field evidence. According to the investigation, what happened at Rab’a was not a dispersal operation that spiralled out of control amid chaos or panic, as the regime later tried to portray it. It was a carefully planned operation that assumed, in advance, massive casualties. Then-Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim admitted, in a televised interview broadcast on 31 August 2013 just weeks after the massacre that his ministry had anticipated losses of "10 percent of the people" present at the sit-in, acknowledging that the number of demonstrators exceeded twenty thousand. By simple arithmetic, this is an official admission that the state anticipated, in advance, the deaths of roughly two thousand people and proceeded with the operation regardless. This is the true horror at the heart of the Rab’a story: it was not a security operation that spun out of control, but a conscious administrative decision, made in an air-conditioned room, with advance calculations, by men who knew precisely how many human beings would die under their fire and who proceeded anyway, or perhaps because of it. According to Human Rights Watch’s analysis, the objective was to send an unambiguous message: whoever challenges the new state will pay an irreversible price. IV. Snipers, Women, and Children The Faces the Reports Do Not Tell Behind every number in the Human Rights Watch reports lies a full human story, deliberately omitted from the state’s official narrative. The investigation documented how security forces opened fire from multiple angles, and how snipers positioned themselves atop buildings surrounding the square, targeting according to survivor testimony and analysed video footage any movement in the square, regardless of whether it was an armed combatant or a nurse trying to reach a wounded person. According to documented testimony, entire families had their tents burn over their heads as fire swept through the sit-in. Doctors and paramedics were killed while trying to pull the wounded from the line of fire. Most damningly of all, the documentation shows deliberate targeting of ambulances and field medical points meaning that wounded people who survived the first bullet then faced death by bleeding out, because anyone attempting to save them was themselves a target. This detail the targeting of medics is what elevates the event from "excessive violent repression" to what human rights organisations have described as a systematic crime. When security forces target those trying to save the wounded, they are not merely dispersing a sit-in; they are preventing witnesses from surviving to tell what happened. V. Thirteen Years of Total Impunity The most painful part of the Rab’a story is not only what happened that day, but what has not happened in the years since. From 14 August 2013 to today, not a single officer, of any rank, has been held accountable for the deaths of hundreds, or thousands, of Egyptians. Quite the opposite: the state has moved to entrench impunity through the force of law itself. Egypt issued legislation granting senior military officers immunity from questioning over any violations that may have occurred following Morsy’s removal a law specifically designed to close the door on any future judicial accountability, regardless of how political circumstances might change. Even the fact-finding committee established by then-interim President Adly Mansour to investigate the June and July events concluded, in its report issued more than a year after the events, that the sit-in’s leaders bore responsibility for the deaths, on the grounds that they had allowed weapons into the square even as the same report admitted, in a glaring contradiction, that security forces had failed to target only armed individuals, meaning they had fired indiscriminately on everyone: armed and unarmed, man and woman, adult and child. This is the pattern that has repeated for over a decade: as each anniversary approaches, official statements re-narrate the events and shift blame onto the victims, while the actual perpetrators — those who planned the operation, gave the orders, and pulled the trigger — remain free. Some now occupy the highest offices of the state. VI. Why This Anniversary, Why Now? A reader might ask: why revisit this story after all these years? Has the world not moved on to newer crises? The answer lies in the very nature of impunity. When a state is never held accountable for the largest massacre of protesters in its modern history, it does not simply "forget" the crime it sets a precedent, telling every future ruler and every future security apparatus: mass killing is possible, politically profitable, and free of cost. This poisonous lesson does not remain confined within Egyptian borders; its echo reaches every Arab capital contemplating how to handle its own opposition. More dangerously, this system of impunity did not stop at Rab’a’s edges; it is the foundation on which Egypt’s entire subsequent decade of repression was built: thousands of political prisoners, grossly unfair mass trials that produced death sentences for dozens of defendants in cases linked directly to the Rab’a events themselves, laws criminalising peaceful protest, a muzzled press, and a civil society hollowed of substance. All of it traces back to the morning of 14 August 2013, when the state learned that overwhelming force succeeds, and that the world will condemn for a few days, then move on. VII. Delayed Justice Is Not Forgotten Justice Despite more than a decade of official silence and impunity, the Rab’a case remains alive in international legal memory. Human rights organisations, from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International, continue to renew their annual calls for an independent international investigation, grounded in the legal principle that crimes against humanity are not subject to statutes of limitation: delayed justice is not forgotten justice. The victims who fell in that square were not numbers in a statistical report. They were fathers who left behind children too young, that day, to understand why their father would never return. They were mothers who, thirteen years later, are still searching for a clearly marked grave to which they can carry flowers, and young people who had decades of life ahead of them that they never got to live. Their memory does not fade with time; it grows with their children, who carry with them the same question their parents asked before they were killed: when will justice come? Conclusion: What Does This Anniversary Demand of Us? Every year, as the anniversary of 14 August returns, the same question resurfaces one the Egyptian state refuses to answer: who gave the order? Who planned the operation? Who decided that twenty thousand human beings deserved to be shot with live ammunition because they staged a peaceful sit-in? This anniversary is not a call for vengeance, nor an invocation of the past for its own sake. It is a reminder that justice, however delayed, remains a debt still owed. And that every instance of international silence over a massacre of this scale opens the door to the next one, elsewhere, under a different pretext, carrying the same lethal conviction: that the world will condemn for a week, then forget. We will not forget. And we will not stop asking the question that unsettles everyone who took part in that crime, regardless of the office they hold today: where is the accountability? Rab’a is no longer merely the name of a square in Cairo. In the conscience of everyone who believes in justice, it has become a test of the world’s conscience itself a test the world has not yet passed.

Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board orders to put his name on building and everywhere after a judge ruled its removal, this time by the trick of adding "Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump" to the name of the centre https://t.co/fDd4rMoy1q #Trump #KennedyCenter #Restoration #US

US left is correct that Democrats need to offer voters far more than an end to Trumpism and a restoration of the earlier status quo. But the fact is that winning in 2026 depends above all on mobilizing the 60% of Americans who are fed up with Trump https://t.co/MtGLw4juQ7 #Democrats #Trumpism #2026Elections #US

🇪🇺 5 August – European Oluja Day Today I celebrate 5 August as a European Day of Liberation, Croatian Unity, and Oluja Day. Operation Oluja marked the restoration of Croatia's territorial integrity and remains a defining moment in Croatia's struggle for freedom and independence. #EuropeanOlujaDay #CroatianUnity #OperationOluja #HR #EU

Active farming & forest management reduce wildfire risk.   The CAP helps by: 🐑 Supporting grazing that clears combustible vegetation 🌾 Creating firebreaks 🌲 Investing in forest restoration & roads for prevention + emergency access   Abandoned land, by contrast, becomes fuel. https://t.co/GjoOwl1ivd #WildfirePrevention #SustainableFarming #ForestManagement #Therearenospecificcountrymentionsinthetweet.Thus #theresponseis: