A Dutch lawmaker, who was planning to hold a caricature contest of Islam’s prophet, has backed away from his plans amid fears of violence.   

Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Party of Freedom, the second-largest political party in the Netherlands, announced his decision Thursday in a written statement. 

“To avoid the risk of victims of Islamic violence, I have decided not to let the cartoon contest go ahead,” Wilders said. 

Wilders also noted in a tweet that the contest was being canceled due to safety and security concerns.

Wilders is known for his anti-Islam views, declaring Islam a totalitarian ideology.

Earlier in June, Wilders announced plans for a cartoon contest to depict Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The news stirred anger and grief among Muslims throughout the world as the physical depiction of Prophet Muhammad is considered offensive and insulting to the followers of Islam.

Roiling protests 

The cartoon contest also sparked protests in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where blasphemy is an extremely charged issue, often leading to mob violence incidents, including the killing of those accused of blasphemy.  

Earlier this week, thousands of supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a hardline religious-turned-political party, started a march from Lahore to Islamabad, demanding the newly elected government of Pakistan cut diplomatic ties with the Netherlands and expel its ambassador.

“We are ready to die in Islamabad for this cause [to stop the cartoon contest] and have already written our wills,” Ejaz Ashrafi, TLP’s spokesperson had told VOA on Wednesday. “Nothing will stop us now.”

TLP members are staunch supporters of the controversial blasphemy law and openly justify violence to safeguard what they call the honor of the prophet. They also demand the death penalty for those who are found guilty of committing blasphemy. 

The party rose to prominence last year and was able to win more than 2 million votes during Pakistan’s general elections last month.

The same party also organized a huge protest in Islamabad in front of the Dutch Embassy last week. Pakistani security forces intervened and barred angry protesters from pelting the Dutch Embassy with stones.

Earlier this month, a Pakistani cricketer had announced a bounty of $24,000 for Wilder’s murder.

Pakistan’s reaction

Pakistan’s information minister Fawad Chaudhry welcomed Wilder’s decision to cancel the contest and framed it as a diplomatic achievement for Pakistan. 

Earlier Thursday, Pakistan’s newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a video message stating that Muslim countries need to raise their concerns against the cartoon contest in the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. 

“They [the West] have their own way of looking at their religions while we [Muslims] look at it in a very different way,” Khan said.

Mohammad Faisal, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign office, tweeted Wednesday about the issue and said the government had raised it with senior diplomats from the Netherlands. 

“FM [foreign minister] spoke with the Dutch FM on phone to discuss the issue of blasphemous caricature. FM expressed concerns on the announcement of abominable and sacrilegious competition by Greet Wilders. The Dutch FM said that his government was neither associated nor supporting the event,” Faisal tweeted.

Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte reportedly said that while he didn’t support the planned contest, he would defend Wilders’ right to hold it.

Some of the information in this report came from Reuters. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Notables gathered to pay tribute to soul singer Aretha Franklin during an epic, hours-long funeral service in Detroit, Aug. 31, 2018. Franklin died Aug. 16, 2018, of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.
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From: MeNeedIt

About one in eight essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries may be fake or contain dangerous mixes of ingredients that put patients’ lives at risk, a research review suggests.

Researchers examined data from more 350 previous studies that tested more 400,000 drug samples in low- and middle-income countries. Overall, roughly 14 percent of medicines were counterfeit, expired or otherwise low quality and unlikely to be as safe or effective as patients might expect.

“Low-quality medicines can have no or little active pharmaceutical ingredient [and] can prolong illness, lead to treatment failure and contribute to drug resistance,” said lead study author Sachiko Ozawa of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Or it may have too much active ingredient and cause a drug overdose,” Ozawa said by email. “If it is contaminated or has other active ingredients, then the medication could cause poisoning, adverse drug interactions or avertable deaths.”

Much of the research to date on counterfeit or otherwise unsafe medicines has focused on Africa, and about half of the studies in the current analysis were done there.

Almost one in five medications tested in Africa were fake or otherwise potentially unsafe, researchers report in JAMA Network Open.

Another third of the studies were done in Asia, where about 14 percent of medicines tested were found to be counterfeit or otherwise unsafe.

Antibiotics and antimalarials were the most tested drugs in the analysis. Overall, about 19 percent of antimalarials and 12 percent of antibiotics were falsified or otherwise unsafe.

While fake or improperly made medicines undoubtedly harm patients, the current analysis couldn’t tell how many people suffered serious side effects or died as a result of falsified drugs.

Researchers did try to assess the economic impact of counterfeit or improperly made medicines and found the annual cost might run anywhere from $10 billion to $200 billion.

While the study didn’t examine high-income countries, drug quality concerns are by no means limited to less affluent nations, Ozawa said.

“Even in high-income countries, purchasing cheaper medicines from illegitimate sources online could result in obtaining substandard or falsified medicines,” Ozawa said. “Verify the source before you buy medications, and make policymakers aware of the problem so they can work to improve the global supply chain of medicines.”

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how counterfeit or poorly made medicines directly harm patients, however. And economic impact was difficult to assess from smaller studies that often didn’t include detailed methodology for calculating the financial toll.

The report “provides important validation of what is largely already known,” Tim Mackey of the Global Health Policy Institute in La Jolla, California, writes in an accompanying editorial.

“It is important to note that although the study is comprehensive, its narrow scope means it only provides a snapshot of the entire problem, as it is limited to studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries and to those

medicines classified as essential by the World Health Organization.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Thousands of mourners have come to pay their respects to music legend Aretha Franklin, who will be laid to rest Friday in Detroit, Michigan. A star-studded roster of performers and speakers are scheduled to attend. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Top NAFTA negotiators from Canada and the United States increased the pace of their negotiations Thursday to resolve final differences to meet a Friday deadline, with their Mexican counterpart on standby to rejoin the talks soon.

Despite some contentious issues still on the table, the increasingly positive tone contrasted with U.S. President Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of Canada in recent weeks, raising hopes that the year-long talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement will conclude soon with a trilateral deal.

“Canada’s going to make a deal at some point. It may be by Friday or it may be within a period of time,” U.S. President Donald Trump told Bloomberg Television. “I think we’re close to a deal.”

Trilateral talks were already underway at the technical level and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo was expected to soon rejoin talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, possibly later on Thursday, people familiar with the process said.

Trump said in a Bloomberg interview: “Canada’s going to make a deal at some point. It may be by Friday or it may be within a period of time,” Trump said. “I think we’re close to a deal.”

Negotiations entered a crucial phase this week after the United States and Mexico announced a bilateral deal on Monday, paving the way for Canada to rejoin talks to modernize the 24-year-old accord that underpins over $1 trillion in annual trade.

The NAFTA deal that is taking shape would likely strengthen North America as a manufacturing base by making it more costly for automakers to import a large share of vehicle parts from outside the region. The automotive content provisions, the most contentious topic, could accelerate a shift of parts-making away from China.

A new chapter governing the digital economy, along with stronger intellectual property, labor and environmental standards could also work to the benefit of U.S. companies, helping Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of creating more American jobs.

Trump has set a Friday deadline for the three countries to reach an agreement, which would allow Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to sign it before he leaves office at the end of November. Under U.S. law, Trump must wait 90 days before signing the pact.

The U.S. president has warned he could try to proceed with a deal with Mexico alone and levy tariffs on Canadian-made cars if Ottawa does not come on board, although U.S. lawmakers have said ratifying a bilateral deal would not be easy.

Dairy, dispute settlement

One sticking point for Canada is the U.S. effort to dump the Chapter 19 dispute-resolution mechanism that hinders the United States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. Lighthizer said on Monday that Mexico had agreed to eliminate the mechanism.

Trump also wants a NAFTA deal that eliminates dairy tariffs of up to 300 percent that he argues are hurting U.S. farmers, an important political base for Republicans.

But any concessions to Washington by Ottawa is likely to upset Canadian dairy farmers, who have an outsized influence in Canadian politics, with their concentration in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

 “Ultimately, we’ve got huge issues that are still to be resolved,” said Jerry Dias, head of Canada’s influential Unifor labor union. “Either we’re going to be trading partners or we’re going to fight.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Microsoft will begin requiring its contractors to offer their U.S. employees paid leave to care for a new child.

It’s common for tech firms to offer generous family leave benefits for their own software engineers and other full-time staff, but paid leave advocates say it’s still rare to require similar benefits for contracted workers such as janitors, landscapers, cafeteria crews and software consultants.

“Given its size and its reach, this is a unique and hopefully trailblazing offering,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women and Families.

The details

The new policy affects businesses with at least 50 U.S.-based employees that do substantial work with Microsoft that involves access to its buildings or its computing network. It doesn’t affect suppliers of goods. Contractors would have to offer at least 12 weeks of leave to those working with the Redmond, Washington-based software giant; the policy wouldn’t affect the contractors’ arrangements with other companies. Leave-takers would get 66 percent of regular pay, up to $1,000 weekly.

The policy announced Thursday rolls out over the next year as the company amends its contracts with those vendors. That may mean some of Microsoft’s costs will rise to cover the new benefits, said Dev Stahlkopf, the company’s corporate vice president and general counsel.

“That’s just fine and we think it’s well worth the price,” she said.

Microsoft doesn’t disclose how many contracted workers it uses, but it’s in the thousands.

The new policy expands on Microsoft’s 2015 policy requiring contractors to offer paid sick days and vacation.

Facebook

Other companies such as Facebook have also committed to improve contractor benefits amid unionization efforts by shuttle drivers, security guards and other contract workers trying to get by in expensive, tech-fueled regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area and around Washington’s Puget Sound.

Facebook doesn’t guarantee that contract workers receive paid parental leave, but provides a $4,000 new child benefit for new parents who don’t get leave. A much smaller California tech company, SurveyMonkey, announced a paid family leave plan for its contract workers earlier this year.

Washington state law

Microsoft said its new policy is partially inspired by a Washington state law taking effect in 2020 guaranteeing eligible workers 12 weeks paid time off for the birth or adoption of a child. The state policy, signed into law last year, follows California and a handful of other states in allowing new parents to tap into a fund that all workers pay into. Washington will also require employers to help foot the bill, and will start collecting payroll deductions next January.

A federal paid parental leave plan proposed by President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, could rely on a similar model but has gained little traction.

“Compared to what employers are doing, the government is way behind the private sector,” said Isabel Sawhill, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who has urged the White House and Congress to adopt a national policy.

Sawhill said it is “very unusual and very notable” that Microsoft is extending family leave benefits to its contract workers. Microsoft already offers more generous family leave benefits to its own employees, including up to 20 weeks fully paid leave for a birth mother.

Pushing the feds

Microsoft’s push to spread its employee benefits to a broader workforce “sends a message that something has to happen more systematically at the federal level,” said Ariane Hegewisch, a program director for employment and earnings at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Until then, she said, it’s helpful that Microsoft seems willing to pay contracting firms more to guarantee their workers’ better benefits.

“Paid family leave is expensive and they acknowledge that,” Hegewisch said. Otherwise, she said, contractors with many employees of child-bearing age could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage to those with older workforces.

Republican state Sen. Joe Fain, the prime sponsor of the measure that passed last year, said Microsoft’s decision was “a really powerful step forward.”

By applying the plan to contractors and vendors around the country, “it really creates a pressure for those state legislatures to make a similar decision that Washington made.”
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From: MeNeedIt

As entertainment giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime woo Indian audiences, they are investing millions of dollars in making films and serials locally. And for Bollywood, one of the world’s most glitzy movie industries, the entry of video streaming services with deep pockets has opened new opportunities.

“When a Bollywood film releases, I have access to audiences in metro cities like Mumbai and Delhi for just a few weeks. On Netflix, my film could reach global audiences,” said Dibakar Banerjee, Mumbai-based filmmaker. Banerjee is one of the four top Bollywood directors who produced “Lust Stories,” a collection of four short films for the video streaming platform this year.

Besides a handful of films like Lust Stories, Netflix has released two original series in the Hindi language in a blaze of publicity. Massive billboards in India’s big cities announced last week the release of Ghoul a horror show with a supernatural twist. An action-packed thriller, Sacred Games set in the Mumbai underworld, starring top Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan, released in July.

Netflix presence known

Since launching in India in 2016, Netflix has been making its presence felt in Indian homes with popular American shows. But as it eyes a market that will have more than half a billion smartphone and Internet users by 2020, it is focusing on producing local content. Even in movie-crazy India, a massive drop in data costs is expected to turn the web into the prime platform for entertainment.

“We have witnessed a huge appetite for entertainment,” said Jessica Lee, Netflix’s vice president for communications-Asia. “Our content investment in India has scaled at a very fast pace, in fact one of the fastest we have ever made in any country launched.”

Amazon, whose subscription is much more affordable than Netflix, has also released several original Indian series, such as a drama about professional cricket and stand-up comedy specials.

Local competition

The American giants are up against stiff competition. For example, the subscriber base of Netflix in India trails local video services that are cheaper and have already made inroads. Hotstar, which offers sports, entertainment and movie channels, dominates India’s streaming landscape. Established Indian TV companies are investing their own money in online platforms.

But in a country where television is dominated by soap operas, analysts say Netflix hopes to offer higher quality content to win over the urban elite that can fork out $8 for the cheapest monthly subscription and has already shown an appetite for tuning into popular American shows like Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why.

“They are mainly riding on the fact that they will be producing original content of a quality and genre, which possibly will not be available on the other platforms,” said Frank D’Souza, a media and entertainment analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Mumbai.

Thirst for varied entertainment

That is where shows such as Sacred Games with a splash of big Bollywood names are likely to play a key role, after all, Bollywood has always been king of entertainment in India. It has been noticed: The Economist said the show announces the arrival of prestige television in the country.

In a young country thirsty for more varied entertainment, bolder shows could also be the key to winning viewers, entertainment analysts say.

D’Souza points to an advantage video streaming services enjoy: India censors movies and television but does not censor Internet content. 

“It gives them the ability to push the envelope a bit in terms of what is the kind of content that they can create and that too in the local language,” D’Souza said.

That is also a bonus for Indian filmmakers and storytellers, who always had to keep an eye on the country’s sometimes heavy-handed censor board. In the short films, Lust Stories for example, all four filmmakers focused on women and their desires, a subject that has remained largely unexplored in a country where conventional romances have been the staple fare. Scenes of sex and gruesome bloodshed in Sacred Games are not the stuff of India’s usual television shows.

For Indian artists, the entry of Netflix and Amazon has widened the canvas for storytelling and tapping a global audience, says director Banerjee, who is hugely optimistic about the potential of video streaming services. 

“It is exciting. It is giving a new platform to filmmakers,” he said. “People have been ringing me from other countries after watching Lust Stories.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The taut drama Operation Finale revisits history and brings to life the dramatic capture, by Mossad operatives, of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust.

Filmmaker Chris Weitz and scriptwriter and historian Matthew Orton offer a dramatic rendition of the historic events that took place in Argentina 15 years after the end of World War II.

After Mossad received a tip that Eichmann was hiding in Argentina under the alias Ricardo Klement, Israel sends a group of elite operatives to abduct the architect of the Final Solution and bring him to Israel to be tried for his crimes.

At the time, Argentina is harboring a sizable number of runaway German Nazis, leaving Israel no hope that an extradition request for Eichmann would be honored by the Argentinian government. So Eichmann’s capture is a top secret, illegal operation.

The group led by Mossad operative Peter Malkin abducts Eichmann taking him to a safe house. 

​Humanity and courage

While they await for the day of their departure, Malkin spends time with Eichmann trying to understand the man he saw as a monster while Eichmann pretends he was nothing more than a mere cog in the Nazi apparatus.

Oscar Isaac plays Malkin, and to get a deeper understanding of his role he read Malkin’s memoir Eichmann in My Hands.

“I knew I wanted to do the movie because what happened in that room with those two men is so fascinating and so bizarre and ugly and uncomfortable,” Isaac said. “It also shows humanity, the courage that Malkin had to decide to identify with this mass murderer when it was much easier to choke him and be angry and torture him.” 

Isaac says considering his character was a man grieving the murder of his sister and her children by the Nazis, he showed incredible restraint.

“It’s almost as if Malkin convinced Eichmann of his humanity,” Isaac said. “The whole thing was about, ‘If we were like you, you’d be dead right now.’”

​Kingsley’​s motivation

Sir Ben Kingsley, who in the past has interpreted numerous Jewish characters in Holocaust films, now takes on the role of the top Nazi operative, Eichmann. He tells VOA he interpreted Eichmann as vulnerable and human to show that those who commit the most heinous crimes are not mythical evil monsters but people among us. 

He relates a personal story that has haunted him over the years and informed his decision to take up this role.

“I was outside an old synagogue with a Jewish journalist, a young woman, and a Hungarian approached us and asked us what we were doing, and we said ‘We are filming the life of Simon Wiesenthal’ to which he replied, ‘Ah you Jews. You should just keep quiet, because it never happened. And if you don’t keep quiet, it will happen again.’ Now work that one out. Work that one out. Absolutely shocking!” the actor said.

​A personal story and catharsis

Filmmaker Chris Weitz, a son of Holocaust survivors, says the story is a personal one.

“Because I was raised as a child of somebody who had lost everything to this spasm of national hatred, and so there is a notion that no matter how good things were things could go haywire down the line. And I think indeed a lot of people are waking up to the possibility that if it’s not anti-Semitism it could be anti-immigrant sentiment, or various other forms of racism that could totally disrupt society.”

During the film’s premiere at the Holocaust museum in Washington, screenwriter and historian Orton said, Eichmann’s trial in Israel was a landmark historical moment.

“The trial allowed them to grieve, allowed them that moment acknowledging that had happened to Israelis, Jewish people and move on from there. So, even if there are still people, deluded people in the world who believe that it is something that didn’t happen, look at where we are!” He points to the hallowed halls of the Holocaust Museum. “That was one of the reasons it was so pivotal. It allowed for national catharsis.” 

Orton hopes that the film will bring awareness to audiences who knew nothing about this part of history. 

“My sincere hope is that people will see a movie like this and say to themselves, ‘I want to learn more about that. I want to see where it differs from reality. I want to explore for myself,’ and so, hopefully, telling these stories through film, through television, inspires people to actually grapple with history,” Orton said
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From: MeNeedIt

The drama “Operation Finale” revisits history and brings to life the dramatic capture, by Mossad operatives, of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Nazi Holocaust. Filmmaker Chris Weitz and scriptwriter and historian Matthew Orton offer a dramatic rendition of the historic events that took place in Argentina, 15 years after the end of World War II. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with the cast about the significance of these events in postwar history and their retelling on film today.
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From: MeNeedIt

Express fitness is gaining popularity in the United States as people try to squeeze exercise into their hectic schedules. To accommodate them, gyms are offering more total body workouts in a compressed period of time. VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Amanda Greene lives with pain.

“If I don’t have nerve pain, I might have joint pain. If I’m not having joint pain, I might have headaches,” Greene said.

The unrelenting pain is a symptom of lupus, an autoimmune disease in which a patient’s immune system attacks the body. Greene has tried acupuncture, massage and opioids, but realized she was allergic to the addictive pain medicine.

The newest therapy that excites her: virtual reality. Greene participated in a test through the company “appliedVR” to see if and how virtual reality could help patients. Greene’s virtual experience helped her to relax and trained her to breathe in a specific way. She saw a tree, crystals, water and her breath as she was guided to inhale and exhale.

“It worked. It works for me,” Greene said. “It’s the quality of life, it is the range of motion, it is like, forget about quality of life, it is the life.” 

VR in hospitals and clinics

Brennan Spiegel is a gastroenterologist who has used VR for his patients. He said abdominal pain and gastrointestinal discomfort, in some cases, are related to a patient’s mental state.

“Something like virtual reality actually can intercede in the brain-gut axis and sort of rewire the neurocircuitry in a way that helps to reduce abdominal pain,” said Spiegel, who is also director of Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai and heads its virtual reality program.

More than 2,500 patients have been treated with virtual reality at Cedars-Sinai, a hospital with the largest documented therapeutic VR program in the world, according to Spiegel.

“Virtual reality can reduce pain, can reduce blood pressure, can improve quality of life, reduce anxiety and now, we’re looking to see can it do really important things like reduce the need for opioids.”

Spiegel said more than 100 hospitals across the United States are using VR as a form of therapy for patients to help manage symptoms such as pain and anxiety. He said an increasing number of countries worldwide are taking an interest, and doctors are starting to develop international guidelines on how to apply and validate the technology in health care.

Spiegel is now taking virtual reality outside the hospital to partner clinics such as Attune Health in Los Angeles, where many of the patients suffer from autoimmune or inflammatory diseases that cause symptoms such as joint pain.

A rheumatologist and founder of Attune Health, Swamy Venuturupalli is conducting a study on how VR can reduce the pain levels of patients in his clinic. Virtual experiences include swimming with dolphins and meditation exercises before a campfire. Venuturupalli said VR is not just a distraction for patients experiencing pain; it can also train them in deep breathing exercises and biofeedback.

“It allows you to connect with that part of your brain that you’re normally not in contact with — the part of the brain that controls respiration, the part of the brain that controls your heart rate and the emotional part of your brain,” Venuturupalli said.

Doctors are also looking into the potential side effects of VR, such as whether it could be addictive.

“It’s probably unlikely and, in fact, we have not seen abuse amongst our patients who are using it for therapeutic purposes rather than for gaming or entertainment,” Spiegel said.

The most common side effect for some patients, according to Spiegel, is “simulator sickness,” the feeling of dizziness and nausea when the patient is wearing a VR headset. He said less than 10 percent of patients experience this, but the symptoms quickly disappear when the headset comes off.

VR pharmacy and clinics

The company appliedVR uses immersive technology to help people manage pain and anxiety. It also is developing content and working with people in entertainment and academia to find VR experiences appropriate for patients. The vision is to have a VR pharmacy. 

“You need a wide variety of content because you have a wide variety of people in health care. From infancy to geriatrics and with every personality type,” said Josh Sackman, president and co-founder of appliedVR.

Swimming with dolphins may relax one patient, yet terrify another. Greene said watching a fashion show in virtual reality helps her escape her pain.

The medical world’s reaction to using VR in the clinical setting has changed in the past three years, said Sackman. In 2015, he experienced skepticism among doctors who wondered why television or a tablet couldn’t be used to distract patients. Sackman said that unlike a screen, VR blocks out the sights and sounds of a hospital or clinic as soon as the patient puts on the VR headset.

“In a matter of moments, you see a patient who is in agony, in terrible pain, stressed, having panic and all of a sudden, their body relaxes, a smile comes on their face and you see a physical transformation,” Sackman said.

Spiegel would like to create outpatient VR clinics. He said the aim is not to have patients stay in VR forever.

“The idea is to learn while you’re in virtual reality, that you do have governance over your body, that the mind matters and that you can learn these skills that are then reproduceable and could be called upon when you need them in the real world,” Spiegel said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Thousands of revelers hurled at least 145 tons of tomatoes at each other Wednesday during the annual “Tomatina” festival in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.

With a firecracker blast marking the start of “La Tomatina” shortly before noon local time, at least six trucks loaded with tomatoes drove through Bunol’s main street, providing red ammunition for the revelers to fight each other for the next hour.

The event takes its origins from a spontaneous food fight that broke out amongst villagers in 1945. It was banned for a time during the 1950s at the height of General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, but has gained popularity again since it was reinstated, drawing a huge international crowd.

The Tomatina attracts thousands of participants and onlookers from Spain and around the world to Bunol, one of the country’s prime tomato-producing areas. The Reuters news agency reports that at one time, the festival involved up to 45,000 participants. Now, it has become a ticketed event with only 22,000 available slots, 5,000 of which go to local residents.

 
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From: MeNeedIt