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The 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference to be held in Yueyang, Hunan from May 24 to 26

YUEYANG, China, May 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The opening ceremony and cultural tourism promotion conference of the 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference will kick off at Baling Square in Yueyang, Hunan on the evening of May 25. With the slogan “Three Xiang and Four Waters, Meet in Hunan. Magnificent Rivers and Lakes, Yueyang Under Heaven”, the conference keeps up with the trend of the times, deeply excavates the connotation of Huxiang culture, and focuses on the new needs and expectations of the public for tourism. It schedules to hold 3 main activities and 5 supporting activities.

The 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference will be held in Yueyang, Hunan from May 24 to 26.

 A Media Snippet accompanying this announcement is available in this link.

Known as “Baling” in ancient times, Yueyang city is a historical and cultural city with profound humanities and beautiful scenery. It integrates famous mountains, rivers, towers, celebrities, and literary works, serving as one of the important birthplaces of Chinese culture and a renowned tourist destination at home and abroad.

Currently, Yueyang is firmly grasping the “historical IP” of Yueyang Tower. With Yueyang Tower – Dongting Lake as the core, it connects four ecological calling cards: “The Smile of Finless Porpoises”, “The Graceful Shadow of Elks”, “The Song of Migratory Birds”, and “The Cuteness of Pandas”, forming a full – domain ecological cultural tourism matrix of “core IP + multiple scenarios”. In recent years, characteristic activities such as the “International bird – watching festival” and “Reed art festival” have become popular, and tourist attractions like “Dongting Lake Town” and “Yangsha Lake International tourism resort” are bustling with visitors.

Taking advantage of the 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference, Yueyang has incorporated the cultural and tourism industry into the “three advantageous industries” of the city's “1+3+X” modern industrial system, and the cultural and tourism industry has entered a fast lane of development, attracting visitors from all over to the banks of Dongting Lake to view the “Splendid Scenery of Baling” and experience “poetry and distance”.

Source: The Organizing Committee of 4th Hunan Tourism Development Conference


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 9457164)

The Children of Gaza Deserve Their Humanity – Their Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, May 23 2025 (IPS-Partners)

22 May 2025, New York – In the past two months alone, more than 950 children have reportedly been killed in strikes across the Gaza Strip. That’s 15 children every day who lose their lives in this horrific conflict. Those who survive face the risk of famine, illness, and the collapse of essential services, including education.

As the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises in the United Nations, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) stands ready with our partners to support the delivery of mental health and psychosocial services as part of our education in emergency response to the children who have suffered so much over the past 19 months. Today, no child is safe in Gaza.

The education system is in ruins. Since the onset of hostilities, more than 95% of schools in Gaza have been partially or completely destroyed and 88% will require significant reconstruction before they can function, according to the Global Education Cluster.

More than 658,000 children are out of school – they are deeply traumatized, have lost their homes and their loved ones, and are living a daily life of extremely painful survival.

As UNICEF recently stated: “The daily suffering and killing of children must end immediately.”

For the well-being of children to be protected, safe access to education must urgently be restored. Even amidst the destruction, Gaza’s families, teachers and local organizations are doing what they can to mitigate the enormous impact on children, including limited learning activities where conditions allow. Through ECW’s support to partners on the ground, we must help these innocent children.

But this is far from being enough to meet the needs of the entire population of school-aged girls and boys. To scale up urgent education support, a ceasefire is crucially needed. We call for:

    • An end to hostilities and respect for international humanitarian law by all parties
    • Safe, unimpeded humanitarian access
    • The immediate release of all hostages
    • Protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools

As Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in his statement to the UN Security Council: “Our response as humanitarians is to make a single ask of the Council: let us work. The UN and our partners are desperate to resume humanitarian aid at scale across Gaza, in line with the fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.”

Where children suffer excruciating pain, nothing can wait. Yet, the children in Gaza are desperately waiting for a response to this single ask.

 


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Excerpt:

Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine Sherif on the need for life-saving education in Gaza