Reader’s Digest Asia (English Edition)

IT’S NO SECRET THAT WE ENJOY A GOOD HUMAN DRAMA. This month, in our cover story ‘I Survived!’ (page 26), we relate the unbelievable experiences of three people whose days all started out the same as any other but ended with a life-changing encounter with the natural world. Anyone who has shared their life with a dog will understand the belief that many hold that they communicate their needs very clearly through looks and actions. But some dog owners are taking it further. Helen Foster, in her article, ‘Can You Teach Your Dog To Talk?’ (page 52), explains how these very determined and patient dog owners are training their pets to audibly ‘speak’ to them in what they claim is genuine two-way communication. From an interview with acclaimed actress Judi Dench (page 34)…

Mask Waste I fear that the pandemic is also throwing a spanner in the works in the fight against plastic (‘Shrinking Our Plastic Footprint’, April). Instead of disposing their disposable masks properly, many people simply throw them out on the street – just as they do with plastic bags. IRENE HECKMANN Origins Of Polar Bears The story of nine-year-old Nanu, a female polar bear (Ursus maritimus), living in the Hudson Bay lowlands (‘A Polar Bear’s Journey’, April) is fascinating for those interested in marine mammalogy. In fact, polar bears stemmed from brown bears (Ursus arctos) around one million years ago. The oldest known fossil is a well-preserved jaw from the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway. Scientists have discovered polar bears trace their family tree to Ireland. Genetic evidence shows they are descended from Irish brown bears…

For the 70 per cent of the world’s population without access to electric washing machines, simply keeping up with laundry is a time-consuming task. The burden falls disproportionately to women and girls, many of whom spend 20 hours a week hand-scrubbing clothes, often without electricity or running water. But Navjot Sawhney, an engineer based in London, has come up with an off-grid solution: a portable, lightweight washing machine powered by a hand crank. Sawhney calls it the Diyva, after the woman who inspired the project – his former next-door neighbour in southern India, where he spent a year volunteering after leaving his job as an engineer at a high-end vacuum cleaner manufacturer. “When I got to know Divya, I was so frustrated by all the unpaid labour she needed to do for the…

As a child in Tangier, Morocco, in the late 1970s, Salima Kadaoui made it her mission to save strays from animal control. The eight year old volunteered at an animal charity and witnessed how the city’s lack of vaccination, neutering and spaying programmes made the situation worse. “I promised myself that I would change my country and that promise stayed with me.” In 2012, after raising her family in the UK, she returned to Morocco and made good on her childhood vow, founding the Sanctuaire de la faune de Tanger. It is now home to more than 450 dogs, 100 cats, 48 donkeys, two wild boars, an ape, two storks and a mule, along with smaller creatures. Kadaoui believes her work has helped people sympathise with animals.…

The number of reported hate crimes in Italy has steadily risen since 2014, fuelled by populist politicians reacting to an influx of refugees and migrants. In Verona, Pier Paolo Spinazzé, a street artist who goes by the name Cibo (Italian for ‘food’), is being celebrated for his creative countermeasures. “Verona is beautiful,” says Spinazzé, “but it has a big problem with the far right.” Whenever he encounters swastikas and other racist graffiti, he paints over them with colourful depictions of his favourite foods, from cupcakes to pizza. Extremists often spray paint over Spinazzé’s cheerful food pictures, but he simply paints over their hateful messages again, and they usually give up. His art is also awakening locals to the seriousness of the problem. “People were so used to those messages that they didn’t…

I remember the first day I came to view the 1920s cottage. It was at the end of a quiet, tree-lined street – although at the time the autumn leaves were falling – but that was long before the three strange happenings occurred. The cottage was in a good residential area not far from the local hospital with great transport links to the north-east of London. It had been pouring with rain when I’d pulled up outside and remembered the estate agent’s words that the cottage did need a little updating. It looked small but, stepping through the hall, I decided it was like a Tardis because it was much bigger inside. The estate agent had also told me that a 92-year-old spinster had died in the cottage in July 1999,…