I Love My Family - International Day of Families

I love my family. Today is special.

Today is the International Day of Families, May 15. It is celebrated at the United Nations headquarters and around the world. The family is a microcosm of the global community and the most intimate social unit, the school of love. Let us strive to strengthen these small but critical units found in every society so that we may advance as one human family toward greater progress.

Use of Water

After breathing, the most important thing we need to do is to drink water.
Water has many crucial duties in our body. The most important are:
-We need water to detoxify our cells from accumulated waste. Without this function, our cells will slow down and stop producing energy. Water is the garbage collector, going through cells to exchange waste for minerals.
-We need water, as electrolyte, to receive and deliver chemical messages in our body.
-We need water to thin our blood and lymphatic fluid and lubricate our eyes.
-We need water to flush out waste from our Digestive system and help the Kidneys to filter and detoxify our blood.
-Without water we would not have saliva, blood, lymphatic fluid, mucosal membrane and our joints would dry out.
-Without water we could not sweat and clean our detoxifying organs.
Without adequate quality and quantity of water, we will slow down, get sick and age early.
You may know that filtering drinking water is a smart thing to do, but do you know that the more you filter your water you will take out not only the “bad things” but all the active ingredients as well. Filtered water, without re-added minerals is “dead” or empty water! Empty water cannot communicate with your body and ends up over diluting your extracellular fluid, causing fluid retention and metabolic slowdown.
There is much confusing and false information about drinking water. Here are some that are not only confusing, but nor right:
Drink as much you can, as soon as you get up, is false.
You should drink not more than a glass of water upon arising otherwise you will dilute your digestive acid and wash most of it down to your small intestine, causing inflammation and reduce the effectiveness of alkaline pancreatic enzymes to break down carbohydrates. Furthermore, by emptying the stomach of gastric juices you will incapacitate the stomach to break down protein, the most desired food for Breakfast. Doing so, you will set yourself up for the development of digestive disorders and will end up with less energy.
Do not drink when you eat, is half true.
One should not drink a large amount of any liquid when you eat, but should sip on up to 150 ml of room temperature water, tea, etc. to help lubricate dry food and increase the quantity of gastric juices. If you eat other than soup or some liquid based food, than you will be better off sipping on some water or other liquid.
Sip at least 2 L of water, every day, is not true.
It depends on the size of your body, your metabolic speed, kidney function, activities and microenvironment as to how much you should drink per day. The best practice is to drink gulp a glass of water every 2 hours to systematically help your kidneys to filter your blood. Only when you are doing moderate to heavy exercise, should you sip water – to help your muscles, introduce sweat and lubricate your body.
Swimming in the ocean and or having regular baths is a blessing for a body, giving it the chance to self-regulate it’s fluids. Having regular foot-spas when you can’t swim or bathe is the next best thing to do, especially when you indulge yourself with few tablesp

oons of Magnesium-oil or chloride crystals.
Most people’s bodies are acidic, so drinking alkaline water and bathing with magnesium could help balance your pH (acid/alkaline). Cancer can develop faster in an acid environment.

Aquatic Biodiversity

  Marine, coastal and inland areas support a rich assortment of aquatic biological diversity that contributes to the economic, cultural, nutritional, social, recreational and spiritual betterment of human populations. Life originated in the world’s oceans and over the millennia has spread inland and evolved into the diverse forms used today by a variety of stakeholders, including commercial and artisan fishers, fish farmers, developers and tourists.

Maintaining aquatic biodiversity in capture fisheries is fundamental to guaranteeing the productivity of the world’s fish stocks, their resilience and their adaptability to environmental change, including climate change. The world’s capture fisheries harvested an estimated 1 938 aquatic species or species groups in 2011. The majority of this diversity was fin fishes (1 402 species), followed by crustaceans (194 species), mollusks (150 species) and other species. As such, capture fisheries use a greater variety of biological diversity than any other food production sector.

Genetic biodiversity in aquaculture provides the raw ingredients that allow breeders to improve the production, efficiency and marketability of species of aquatic plants and animals. Over 360 species of fish, invertebrates and plants are farmed around the world. This represents a wealth of genetic diversity both within and among species that helps make aquaculture one of the fastest growing food production sectors. Humans began to domesticate terrestrial plants and animals about 12 000 years ago, however more than 90 percent of all cultured aquatic species have only been domesticated since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although aquatic biodiversity plays a vital role in livelihoods, it is being threatened by factors within the fisheries sector, such as overfishing, destructive fishing practices and introduction of alien species, as well as by external factors such as habitat loss and degradation mainly caused by land-based activities. It will be essential to reduce these threats to continue providing high quality nutrients and economic opportunities to the millions of people that depend on aquatic biodiversity.

The FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department is responsible for maintaining information on capture fisheries and aquaculture production, and the development of knowledge, policy and intergovernmental instruments devoted to the promotion of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices. In 2007, the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department published the Technical Guidelines on Genetic Resource Management. These Technical Guidelines were developed to support sections of the FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries on aspects of genetic resource management in aquaculture. The effective management of aquatic biodiversity can help promote responsible aquaculture by increasing production output and efficiency and help minimize adverse impacts on the environment.

Forests Biodiversity

Forests are among the most important repositories of terrestrial biological diversity. Together, tropical, temperate and boreal forests offer very diverse habitats for plants, animals and micro-organisms.
Biological diversity is the basis for a wide array of goods and services provided by forests. The variety of forest trees and shrubs play a vital role in the daily life of rural communities in many areas, as sources of wood and non-wood products, as contributors to soil and water conservation, and as repositories of aesthetic, ethical, cultural and religious values. Forest animals are a vital source of nutrition and income to many people, and have vital roles in forest ecology, such as pollination, seed predation, dispersal and germination, and predation on potential pest species.
Forest biological diversity is one of the seven thematic elements of the concept of Sustainable Forest Management approved by the General Assembly of the UN in 2007, together with the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests.
Forests provide more than 10% of the GDP in many of the poorest countries. It is estimated that the forestry sector provides formal employment for 10 million people and informal employment for additional 30 to 50 million people in developing countries. Notwithstanding such a relevant role in world economy, progress towards sustainable forest management is still limited, and there is continuing loss and degradation of forests in many developing countries. Losing forest diversity means missing opportunities for medicines, food, raw materials and employment opportunities, in one word: welfare.

The FAO Forestry Programme focuses on how to maximize the potential of forests, trees and related resources to improve people’s economic, social and environmental conditions while ensuring that the resource is conserved to meet the needs of future generations.

FAO works to improve the knowledge on sustainable forest and wildlife management, and supports the development and implementation of appropriate policies and practices to ensure forest and wildlife protection in order to maintain or improve their capacity to produce wood and non-wood products, sustain wildlife populations, conserve biodiversity, safeguard wildlife habitat, mitigate climate change, and protect soils and watersheds.

Plants Biodiversity

About 7,000 species of plants have been cultivated for consumption in human history. The great diversity of varieties resulting from human and ecosystem interaction guaranteed food for the survival and development of human populations throughout the world in spite of pests, diseases, climate fluctuations, droughts and other unexpected environmental events.
Presently, only about 30 crops provide 95% of human food energy needs, four of which (rice, wheat, maize and potato) are responsible for more than 60% of our energy intake. Due to the dependency on this relatively small number of crops for global food security, it will be crucial to maintain a high genetic diversity within these crops to deal with increasing environmental stress and to provide farmers and researchers with opportunities to breed for crops that can be cultivated under unfavorable conditions, such as drought, salinity, flooding, poor soils and extreme temperatures.
Plant genetic resources are the basis of food security and consist of diversity of seeds and planting material of traditional varieties and modern cultivars, crop wild relatives and other wild plant species. These resources are used as food, feed for domesticated animals, fibber, clothing, shelter and energy. The conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA is necessary to ensure crop production and meet growing environmental challenges and climate change. The loss of these resources or a lack of adequate linkages between conservation and their use poses a severe threat to the world’s food security in the long term. The potential of plant genetic resources for food security, sustainable livelihoods, adequate nutrition and adaptation to climate change is enormous, if managed in a sustainable manner. 

FAO is dedicated to improve knowledge and conservation of plant genetic resources to ensure the sustainable provision of food in the long term, and contributing to make full use of the genetic resources available, including wild relatives of main crops currently used.

The most obvious reason for maintaining plant diversity is because we rely on plants for food, and a blight that targets a major crop could have serious implications. Unfortunately, the world's major staple crops have been greatly homogenized over the years, and that's not a good thing. Many countries have lost agro-biodiversity (or the diversity of their agricultural crops), which puts the cultures and livelihoods of the poorest populations at even greater risk.

Innovative new medicines are another reason to maintain biodiversity among plants. It's a dangerous world out there and plants, being for the most part immobile, have had to evolve some particularly fiendish and unique defenses that scientists can use for medicinal purposes. Even animals, mobile creatures that they are, have had to develop some pretty potent defenses that can help scientists cook up new medicines. But in the most basic sense, the reason we need plants - along with organisms like algae and cyano-bacteria - is because they're essential for a properly functioning planet. We wouldn't even have the oxygen that we're so fond of breathing, for example, without photosynthesis.

Fortunately, conservationists had the insight to begin conserving plants in the 1950s. Some plants are maintained in their original habitats and others are held in gene banks, cell cultures and at various zoos and botanical gardens [source: FAO]. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations lists 20 major plant gene banks around the world. These banks house various types of seeds but also back up one another in the event of natural and manmade disasters. 

Botanists use two methods to preserve and store a plant's genetic material. Drying and freezing seeds mimics the natural process of winter. Seeds stored by this method survive for decades. But frozen seeds must be thawed and planted to produce seeds that will grow crops. Cryonic freezing is more expensive, but it keeps stored genes "fresh" much longer than conventional drying and freezing. At cryonic temperatures, molecular action stops. Think of it as suspended animation. The frozen seed stays in the same condition, not changing or aging. The genetic seed banks around the world use these methods to store genetic and seed samples from hundreds of plants.

Victory - 9 May, 22th Anniversary

May 9, the 22th Anniversary of SHOUSHI’s Liberation, due to which Nagorno Karabakh Stopped being an enclave in 1992.
God Knows what would have Happened to this Land, and who would be Populating it Now if on May 9 of 1992 the Armenian Forces of Self-Defense did not start the Shoushi Operation. 
On May 9 Armenians Gained Total Control over the Shoushi Fortress. 

This is the Legacy of the Liberation Movement. The Struggle to Determine Own Destiny, to Protect Own Homeland and to Ensure that Armenian Nation will Persevere.

Sanctions vs. Russia May Seriously Affect European Economy

Imposing economic sanctions against Russia may seriously hurt the European economy, according to Siim Kallas, interim European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs.
At a news conference devoted to the spring statistics forecast of the European Commission, Kallas said that they were thoroughly analyzing the possible consequences of imposing (trade and economic) sanctions on Russia. He noted that there were three possible scenarios, the worst of which envisioned serious losses to the European economy.
Nevertheless, the commissioner outlined that in case such sanctions against Russia are adopted, their impact on the economies of European countries would be unequal: some countries like Finland or Cyprus would be more exposed to negative effects, the others - to a lesser extent.