WORLD VIEWS


historical perspective to explain the Franks’ story and put it in historical context.


Balkan Rivals Try to Make Nice Senior offi cials from Greece and Macedonia say progress has been made to end tensions between the two neighbors by revising school text- books in each nation. The Balkan countries are seeking


Sperm Whale Had 13 Pounds of Plastic in Its Stomach The carcass of a sperm whale that washed ashore in Indonesia had nearly 13 pounds of plastic waste in its stomach — including 115 plastic cups, four plastic bottles, 25 plastic bags, and two fl ip-fl ops. “Although we have not been able to deduce the cause of death, the facts


that we see are truly awful,” Dwi Suprapti, a marine species conservation co-ordinator at WWF Indonesia, told the Associated Press. She said the carcass was too decayed to give an exact cause of death.


Middle East Asylum Seekers Crowding Into Germany More than 1.8 million people have applied for asylum in Germany in the past fi ve years. The fi gures, fi rst reported by Ger-


man newspaper Bild, show a sharp rise in asylum requests from 123,581 in 2013 to 723,938 in 2015. The government said almost a third


of asylum-seekers — about 573,000 — originated from Syria. The second and third most numerous groups were Afghans and Iraqis.


Anne Frank Museum Gets a Facelift The museum built around a secret annex in a canal-side house where Anne Frank hid from Nazis during World War II has been renovated to better tell the teenage diarist’s tragic story to a new generation of visitors who may know little about the horrors of the Holocaust.


42 NEWSMAX | JANUARY 2019 Anne, her sister and their parents


hid in the annex with four other Jews from July 1942 until they were arrest- ed in August 1944 and deported to concentration camps. Only her father, Otto Frank, survived. The museum now has an audio


tour which pieces together fragments from the diary, family stories, and


to end decades of hostilities with an agreement that would see Greece’s neighbor change its name to North Macedonia and both sides refrain from hostile actions or rhetoric. Similar schoolbook initiatives


have been launched between Greece and Albania, and between Macedo- nia and Bulgaria. The region has a history of ethnic and cultural rivalries that has been stoked by nationalistic textbooks.


Another First Lady for Slovenia Slovenia, home of fi rst lady Melania Trump, has appointed its fi rst woman as army chief-of-staff . Maj. Gen. Alenka Ermenc, 55,


will help improve the performance of Slovenia’s military, according to the NATO nation’s President Borut Pahor. The previous army head was oust- ed for “poor performance.”


WHERE IN THE WORLD . . . GAZA STRIP


T


he only grand piano in the Gaza Strip was played in public for the first time in a decade in November, following an international eff ort to fix it after it was nearly


destroyed in an Israeli airstrike. “Playing this piano is feeling like playing history,” said Japanese pianist Kaoru Imahigashi who performed to a sold-out audience of 300 Gaza residents, many of them hearing a piano for the first time. Japan donated the piano in 1998, but 12 years ago it was damaged by an airstrike. Miraculously, it was found in the rubble. A Belgian nonprofit group restored it. Gaza-born Yasmin Elian, 22, said after the concert, “This encourages me to learn piano.”


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