Monday, May 9, 2016

St. Anton am Arlberg - Austria

Do you like snow? Do you enjoy yourself being on the mountains? Do you consider yourself a nature lover? And most importantly, do you like skiing and snowboarding? Then you might take St. Anton am Arlberg as a strong consideration.
St. Anton, in the Austrian Tirol, is one of the world’s best known resorts. Its serious terrain attracts the hard-core skiers, putting it up there alongside Chamonix and Jackson Hole, and it has hosted the Alpine Skiing World Championships on several occasions, most recently in 2001. St. Anton’s reputation also extends to its famous après ski scene too with the Krazy Kanguruh a strong contender for the title of ‘the Alps most legendary ski bar’ for nearly 50 years.
But this cult ski resort isn’t all about tough skiing and hard partying. Its broad appeal has expanded along with the Arlberg ski area, which now stretches to 340km of pistes (one of the six largest ski areas in the world) and offers skiing for all abilities. Off the slopes, you’ll find a wide range of shopping, dining and accommodation with plenty of luxury/gourmet choices, excellent leisure facilities and a pedestrianised centre.

St. Anton is also one of the few ski areas that can claim to be where it all began: the Arlberg Technique of downhill skiing, which developed here over a century ago, is basically the style we’re all skiing now. Pioneer and local boy Hannes Schneider took the technique on a world tour to Japan and the USA, spreading the sport of skiing around the planet, the rest, as they say, is history.

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What is going on in Venezuela with all the signatures?

Venezuela’s opposition cleared an initial hurdle in its promise to hold a referendum on the rule of President Nicolas Maduro, with the national electoral council approving the release of a form used to gather signatures.
The opposition now has 30 days to collect the 1 percent of registered voters, said Luis Emilio Rondon, a member of the electoral body, on the Globovision network. The national electoral council said the opposition needs to get signatures from 197,978 voters across the country.
After winning a majority of Congress in elections late last year, the opposition has seen most of its initiatives blocked by Maduro and a Supreme Court he appointed right after the elections. After winning 112 of 167 seats, the opposition pledged to free political prisoners, unwind more than a decade worth of socialist controls on the economy and seek the removal of Maduro within six months.
“It’s a democratic mechanism that is supported by 70 percent of the country,” opposition governor and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said in a statement on Tuesday. “They can’t take away the right of the people to decide.”
The opposition will suspend a march that had been scheduled for Wednesday once it receives the forms from the electoral council, Capriles said.
Maduro has battled low approval ratings as Venezuelans face shortages and triple-digit inflation in the wake of declining oil prices that have sapped government revenue. The economy will likely contract 8 percent this year after declining 5.7 percent last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Should the 1 percent threshold of registered voters sign on in the next month, the opposition must then work to collect signatures from 20 percent of the electorate before the national electoral council can authorize a vote on whether or not a referendum on Maduro’s rule should be held, opposition lawmaker Milagro Valero said.

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