3/6 Why Pheasant Island Is Sometimes in France, Sometimes in Spain

Why Pheasant Island Is Sometimes in France, Sometimes in Spain

In this week's Maphead, Ken Jennings explores the world's oldest condominium—and it's an island, not a building.

On maps, international borders are two-dimensional: they can be traced out on a flat sheet of paper with latitude and longitude. In real life, terrain is three-dimensional, and borders can be as well—like Friedrichstrasse Station during the Cold War, where one could cross from West to East Berlin just by going up a flight of stairs. But there's only one four-dimensional border in the world, one that moves back and forth not in space, but in time.

There used to be a condominium the size of Oregon.
Condominiums aren't just for yuppies and Florida retirees. Long before "condos" were a thing, condominiums were arrangements by which two nations would share a territory by assuming joint sovereignty.(e,g不發音) Oregon Country was a condominium of Britain and the United States between 1818 and 1846; Europe's Lake Constance is still a three-nation condominium in the Alps.

It's "Isla de los Faisanes" and "Île des Faisans."
The world's oldest condominium is Pheasant Island. It sits in the Bidasoa River between France and Spain just a mile or two from the Bay of Biscay, east of San Sebastian. Pheasant Island has been administered jointly by France and Spain since the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed there. It's also the world's smallest condominium, just 1.5 acres in area. I've been in bigger grocery stores.

France and Spain get joint custody.
What's really unusual about Pheasant Island is that Spain and France don't share the territory at the same time. By the terms of the 1659 treaty, they alternate sovereignty. Every February, French representatives meet their counterparts on Pheasant Island to hand it over to the Spaniards; every August, they get it back. This has happened over seven hundred times. Geography buff Frank Jacobs has likened this to a 350-year timeshare, or "an extremely slow game of ping-pong." To me, it sounds more like a divorce custody arrangement. "Is this your weekend to be French? France will pick you up after school."

Someday, my prince will come (to Pheasant Island).
In theory, this means that a camper on Pheasant Island could go to sleep in Spain and wake up in France, without ever moving an inch. In practice, this is impossible, because neither country allows visitors to the island. So there's no way to take selfies with the stone monument commemorating the Treaty of the Pyrenees. But the island used to get lots more visitors because of its swinging singles scene. For centuries, the island was the traditional meeting place to hand off brides and grooms when important royal marriages were arranged between France and Spain. Today, locals just have to use Tinder like everybody else.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.

http://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-pheasant-island-is-sometimes-in-france-sometimes-in-spain?mbid=synd_digg

3/5 Egypt's Agricultural Exports Ripe for World Markets

Egypt's Agricultural Exports Ripe for World Markets

Egyptian fruit and vegetables now look cheap and attractive to foreign buyers, exporters said.

“Demand has doubled, with every product gaining one or two markets,” said Mostafa al-Naggari, Chairman of Fresh Fruit Co, which recently signed deals to ship to China and is finalizing others with Australia, New Zealand and Korea.

Egypt has secured a $12 billion IMF loan to support a wide-ranging reform program aimed at restoring foreign inflows and correcting the budget deficit.

A series of tax increases and subsidy cuts, along with the currency depreciation, have driven inflation to record levels in a country where millions live a paycheck away from hunger. But amid the pain of government austerity, local manufacturers and exporters are reporting an increase in activity.

Egyptian politicians have blamed the import-dependent country's trade deficit, which stood at $42.64 billion in 2016, for putting pressure on the local currency. Along with a sharp reduction in imports, a rise in agricultural exports could help narrow that gap.

Exports of Egyptian vegetables, fruits and legumes amounted to $2.2 billion last year and would likely rise by about 15 percent in 2017, Abdel Hamid al-Demerdash, the head of Egypt's Agriculture Export Council, said.

The main vegetable exports include onions and artichokes, and fruits include oranges and strawberries.

Farmland in the Egyptian countryside.

The growing interest follows a turbulent year for Egyptian produce, with a Hepatitis A scare in North America linked to Egyptian strawberries and a temporary ban of Egyptian fruits and vegetables in Russia, one of Cairo's top buyers.

But traders say growth now comes down to how quickly they can expand to meet demand.

Japan Food Solutions (JFS), a fruit and vegetable exporter, is working to double its planted area this year to meet an expected 20-30 percent increase in demand from markets in Europe and North America, senior managing director Emad Said said.

“I see this as a golden opportunity for Egyptian produce to compete more aggressively ... The clever ones will seize this opportunity to enter new markets,” he said.

http://www.voanews.com/a/egypt-agricultural-exports-ripe-for-world-markets-after-currency-float/3727916.html

3/4 Why happiness is healthy

(CNN)Happiness -- you know it when you see it, but it's hard to define.

You might call it a sense of well-being, of optimism or of meaningfulness in life, although those could also be treated as separate entities. But whatever happiness is, we know that we want it, and that is just somehow good.

We also know that we don't always have control over our happiness. Research suggests that genetics may play a big role in our normal level of subjective well-being, so some of us may start out at a disadvantage. On top of that, between unexpected tragedies and daily habitual stress, environmental factors can bring down mood and dry up our thirst for living.

Being able to manage the emotional ups and downs is important for both body and mind, said Laura Kubzansky, professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard School of Public Health.

"For physical health, it's not so much happiness per se, but this ability to regulate and have a sense of purpose and meaning," Kubzansky said.

Why be happy?

Many scientific studies, including some by Kubzansky, have found a connection between psychological and physical well-being.

A 2012 review of more than 200 studies found a connection between positive psychological attributes, such as happiness, optimism and life satisfaction, and a lowered risk of cardiovascular disease. Kubzansky and other Harvard School of Public Health researchers published these findings in the journal Psychological Bulletin.

It's not as simple as "you must be happy to prevent heart attacks," of course. If you have a good sense of well-being, it's easier to maintain good habits: Exercising, eating a balanced diet and getting enough sleep, researchers said. People who have an optimistic mindset may be more likely to engage in healthy behaviors because they perceive them as helpful in achieving their goals, Kubzansky said.

Lower blood pressure, normal body weight and healthier blood fat profiles were also associated with a better sense of well-being in this study.

Why trying to make your kids happy can backfire

For now these studies can only show associations; they do not provide hard evidence of cause and effect. But some researchers speculate that positive mental states do have a direct effect on the body, perhaps by reducing damaging physical processes. For instance, another of Kubzansky's studies found that optimism is associated with lower levels of inflammation.

If what you mean by happiness is specifically "enjoyment of life," there's newer evidence to support that, too. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that people ages 60 and older who said they enjoyed life less were more likely to develop disability over an eight-year period. Mobility was also related to enjoyment of life. This study does not prove that physical problems are caused by less enjoyment of life, but suggests a relationship.

Where happiness comes from: genes + environment

There is substantial evidence that genetics play a big role in happiness, according to Nancy Segal, psychologist at California State University, Fullerton, and author of "Born Together -- Reared Apart."

Research has shown that identical twins tend to have a similar level of happiness, more so than fraternal twins. And in identical twins, one twin's happiness is a better predictor of the other twin's current or future happiness than educational achievement or income, Segal said.

10 ways to get happy

"If you have happy parents and happy children, I think that people usually assume it's because the children are modeling the parents," she said. "But that's not really so. You need to make the point that parents pass on both genes and environments."

What's more, there seems to be a certain level of happiness that individuals have generally, to which they usually gravitate, Segal said. That level depends on the person, and the situations he or she is in.

Even if genetics has a big influence, though, that doesn't mean anyone is biologically stuck being unhappy, she said. It might take more work if your baseline mood is low, but certain therapies have proven useful for elevating psychological well-being.

The environment is still quite important for psychological well-being, too, Kubzansky said.

"To say to someone, 'Don't worry, be happy,' is kind of not looking at the whole picture of, what are the environmental constraints on things they can do?" Kubzansky said.

Loneliness: 5 things you may not know

Money and time

You might be thinking: "Maybe I would be happier if I had more money." There's that old cliché "money doesn't buy happiness" -- but is it true? A 2010 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that emotional well-being rises with income up to a point, which seems to be a household income of $75,000. Day-to-day happiness did not increase with higher incomes.

But when participants were asked about overall satisfaction with their lives, that did continue to rise in conjunction with income, even after $75,000, Princeton University researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found. Their results show a sharp distinction between how people see themselves in terms of happiness "today" vs. life satisfaction.

"More money does not necessarily buy more happiness, but less money is associated with emotional pain," Kahneman and Deaton wrote. "Perhaps $75,000 is a threshold beyond which further increases in income no longer improve individuals' ability to do what matters most to their emotional well-being, such as spending time with people they like, avoiding pain and disease, and enjoying leisure."

More on money (not) buying happiness

Would you be happier if you bought the car you always wanted? Several studies suggest experiences make us happier than possessions. That's partly because once you have purchased something, such as a new car, you get used to seeing it every day and the initial joy fades, experts say. But you can continue to derive happiness from memories of experiences over time.

Experiences form "powerful and important memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world," Thomas Gilovich, professor of psychology at Cornell University, told CNN in 2009.

But if you're in the market for a birthday present for your sweetheart, a material object can still be meaningful, becoming a keepsake with sentimental value that increases over time, Gilovich said.

Study: Experiences make us happier than possessions

Or maybe you'll be happier once you've lived longer. Research has also found that some sense of happiness may come with age.

Older adults may be able to better regulate their emotions than younger people, expose themselves to less stress and experience less negative emotion, Susan Turk Charles, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN in 2009. More science needs to be done on whether the diminished negative response is also associated with a feeling of happiness.

More happiness may come with age, studies say

Happiness: Living in the moment

But what about right now -- what can we do to make ourselves feel more positive?

If you're seeking to increase your own sense of happiness, try mindfulness techniques. Mindfulness means being present and in the moment, and observing in a nonjudgmental way, Susan Albers, psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, told CNN in 2010.

Can mindfulness help manage pain and mental illness?

Mindfulness comes from Buddhism and is key to meditation in that tradition. Therapies for a wide variety of conditions, including eating disorders, depression and PTSD, incorporate mindfulness. Focusing on the here and now is a counterbalance to findings that mind-wandering is associated with unhappiness.

Activities such as keeping a gratitude diary and helping other people are also associated with feelings of well-being, Kubzansky said.

A variety of smartphone apps are also available that claim to help you monitor and enhance your moods. But don't feel you have to face emotional challenges alone; a professional therapist can help you get to where you want to be.

If a sense of well-being makes a healthier person, then policy-makers should also promote large-scale initiatives to encourage that, Kubzansky said. Creating parks to encourage exercise and instituting flexible work-family initiatives are just some of the ways that communities can become healthier as a whole.

So remember: A glass half full might be healthier than a glass half empty.

Want to find out more ways to get happy? Visit our Project Happy page at cnn.com/happy.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/20/health/happiness-wellbeing-health/index.html

3/1 'Moonlight' Upsets 'La La Land to Take Top Oscar Prize - Best Picture

'Moonlight' Upsets 'La La Land to Take Top Oscar Prize - Best Picture

Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight'' - not, as it turned out, "La La Land'' - won best picture at the Academy Awards in a historic Oscar upset and an unprecedented fiasco that saw one winner swapped for another while the "La La Land'' producers were in mid-speech.

Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway apparently took the wrong envelope - the one for best actress winner Emma Stone - onto the stage. When they realized the mistake, representatives for ballot tabulators Price Waterhouse Coopers raced onstage to stop the acceptance speech.

It was, nevertheless, a shocking upset considering that "La La Land'' came in with 14 nominations, a record that tied it with "Titanic'' and "All About Eve.'' ''Moonlight'', made for just $1.5 million, is an unusually small Oscar winner.

"Even in my dreams this cannot be true,'' said an astonished Jenkins, once he reached the stage.

Up until the end, the broadcast had seesawed between jabs at Donald Trump and passionate arguments for inclusivity, with awards going to "La La Land,'' "Moonlight'' and "Manchester by the Sea.'' Damien Chazelle, the director of “La La Land”, became the youngest to win best director.

Casey Affleck won best actor - his first Oscar - for his soulful, grief-filled performance in "Manchester by the Sea.''

Mahershala Ali won best supporting actor for "Moonlight.'' He glowed on the stage as he informed the crowd that he and his wife, Amatus Sami-Karim, welcomed a daughter four days earlier. Best foreign film for the second time went to Asghar Farhadi, director of Iran's "A Salesman.'' Farhadi, who also won for his "A Separation,'' had said he wouldn't attend because of Trump's travel ban to seven predominantly Muslim nations. Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian astronaut, read a statement from Farhadi.

"I'm sorry I'm not with you tonight,'' it read. "My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.''