Hundreds of single Thais attended a ceremony this week at a Hindu shrine in Bangkok to make offerings as they prayed to find that special someone, just days ahead of Valentine's Day.
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QUANG PHU CAU, Vietnam (Reuters) - Across this village south of Hanoi, otherwise drab patches of ground blaze with colour as bundles of magenta-tipped incense sticks are left to dry in the sun before being distributed across Vietnam and to other parts of the world.
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Do Thi Oanh, 37, a resident of Quang Phu Cau, recalls from childhood being involved in making incense sticks that are burned in Vietnam during prayers to ancestors or in festivals as well as in cultural and religious rituals around the world.
Now, she is worried about the future of the trade after India imposed curbs on imports and with the added impact of the pandemic and a new wave of infections since January after the coronavirus had been largely been contained for months.
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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Frustrated by seeing store shelves in Ivory Coast lined with almost exclusively light-skinned dolls, Sara Coulibaly decided to create alternatives in which local children could see themselves.
Five years on, Coulibaly’s company Naima Dolls employs around 20 young women who were scrambling on a recent afternoon to package 32 models of dolls with dark skin in time for Christmas.
“Our hope today is to give children the means to make good decisions,” she said in her office in Abidjan, decorated with African masks and colourful wax prints.
“I want them to be conscious of the fact that they are beautiful, that their culture is beautiful and their culture is rich,” she said, ruing the widespread use of skin-lightening creams across Africa.
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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Arming each participant with a paddle, bucket, sieve and picker stick, ‘Clean Up Kayak’ is a tour of Australia’s Sydney Harbour with a difference.
The sole objective, says founder Laura Stone, is to clear rubbish from the harbour - and business is thriving.
“We’ve been quite surprised, even through the pandemic, we’ve been very busy,” Stone said.
“Because they can’t travel, people are looking for something to do, that is not just good for them, but also good for the environment.”
Stone began the tours several years ago after noticing the rubbish littering the waters while on other group tours and kayaking lessons run by her organisation.