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Pakistan
Pakistan Expels Afghan Refugees
Pakistan has begun the process of removing all undocumented immigrants from the country. This expulsion policy largely affects Afghan asylum seekers without legal status, who make up the bulk of Pakistan’s migrant population. As of Wednesday morning, 140,322 undocumented immigrants had voluntarily left Pakistan prior to the roundups, which are set to begin Thursday. Pakistan says that refugees will not be expelled, only those who are “completely illegal.” According to the UN, there are more than 2 million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan including at least 600,000 refugees who fled from the Taliban in 2021. Afghanistan is going through a severe humanitarian crisis, particularly for women and girls, who have been banned by the Taliban from getting an education beyond sixth grade, from most public spaces and jobs. The Pakistani government blames Afghan nationals for militant attacks, smuggling, and crime. Many Afghans who are being deported have been living in Pakistan for decades.
This map depicts the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: NYT
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Panama
Panama Canal Cutting Traffic
The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) will make more cuts to the number of ships transiting the waterway due to the worst drought reported in over 70 years. The ACP says the El Niño weather phenomenon associated with warmer-than-usual water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean has contributed to the severe drought, resulting in the driest October since records began in 1950. The decision is expected to increase the cost of shipping goods around the world by decreasing the globally available number of vessels. Gatun Lake, the rainfall-fed reservoir that provides most of the water in the canal’s lock system, has seen its waterline decline to unprecedented levels for this time of year. Starting November 3rd, booking slots will be cut to 25 per day from an already reduced 31 per day, and that number will be further reduced to 18 slots per day by February 2024.
This map depicts the route of the Panama Canal, which is now set to allow a reduced number of ships to pass through due to decreased water levels in Gatun Lake. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Le Monde
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Space
Mars Map Leads to Icy Treasures
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has released a new map of subsurface water on Mars, revealing regions on the Red Planet where ice buried beneath the surface may be accessible to future astronauts. This week, the NASA-funded Subsurface Water Ice Mapping project (SWIM) released its fourth set of maps, which the space agency is calling the “most detailed” since the project first began in 2017. Using data from several NASA missions, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Odyssey, and the Mars Global Surveyor, SWIM identifies the possible locations of subsurface ice on Mars. For the latest SWIM map, scientists relied on two higher resolution cameras on board MRO, which has been orbiting Mars since 2006 in search of water.
This map depicts ice sheets below the surface of Mars. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: The beginning of Halloween celebrations in the US is attributed to migration from what country?
A: Ireland
Halloween is among the oldest traditions in the world as it touches on an essential element of the human condition: the relationship between the living and the dead. The observance evolved from ancient rituals marking the transition from summer to winter, thereby associating it with transformation, which is still a central theme of the holiday. Halloween traditions in the West date back thousands of years to the festival of Samhain, the Celtic New Year’s festival. The name means “summer’s end”, and the festival marked the close of the harvest season and the coming of winter. The Celts believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest at this time and so the dead could return and walk where they had before. The rituals of Samhain arrived in the United States with the displacement of the Irish in 1845-1849, during the potato famine. The Irish, largely Catholic, continued to observe All Hallows’ Eve, All Saint’s Day, and All Soul’s Day but these festivals by now were infused with folk traditions such as the jack-o’-lantern. The central theme of Samhain was transformation. Transformation is still central to the observance of Halloween. The mask and costume transform the wearer from their everyday life to another persona. The costumes people wear represent fears and hopes in the same way the people centuries ago wore their masks to deter unwelcome spirits and experiences while anticipating joyful reunions with loved ones. At its most basic level, Halloween is – or can be – a triumph of hope over fear, which is most likely what it also meant to the ancient Celts at Samhain thousands of years ago.
Source
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Q: Marigolds, or cempasúchil, are emblematic of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations. What Indigenous culture used them originally for medicinal and ritualistic purposes to honor the dead?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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