Killer Hornets Are Taking Over China – and Europe Might be Next

Planning a trip to China soon? Watch out for killer hornets. It’s not just the country’s pollution that’s bad for you; Asian giant hornets have been making their way into Shaanxi Province recently, and at the size of your thumb, they’re not only a threat to local honeybees but humans as well. The hornets can actually be fatal, and the stats aren’t encouraging. In city of Ankang, the fatality toll is twice 2002-2005 average; this year alone, there have been 419 injuries and 28 deaths in the area.

Even those outside of China have cause for concern; the Chinese hornet, which is a smaller species of than the one in China, has already appeared in France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium.To get a visual of what an attack would be like, read this report via Quartz:

Here’s a chilling scene that Chen Changlin, an Ankang farmer, witnessed one evening a few days ago. As he harvested rice on evening, hornets swarmed a woman and child working nearby. When they reached Chen, they stung him for three minutes straight. Chen made it; the other two died. “The more you run, the more they want to chase you,” said another victim, whose kidneys were ravaged by the venom.

What does stung by one of these hornets feel like? Similar to having a “hot nail” through your leg according to entomologist. And that’s if you live to tell the story.

The Way Of Kindness

In his preface to a collection of stories called “The Kindness of Strangers,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote, “Kindness and compassion are among the principal values that make our lives meaningful… At any given moment there must be hundreds of millions of acts of kindness taking place around the world.”

That theme infuses the five travelers’ tales Aol Travel is highlighting this week, all portraying acts of unexpected kindness in a globe-embracing spectrum of settings, from Syria and Liberia to India, Greece and Russia. These acts are not dramatic or headline commanding, but small, everyday kindnesses.

Read all these stories at Aol Travel.

Is This The Ultimate (And Least Practical) Round The World Trip?

If you have a thing about cartography, Reddit’s “MapPorn” page is almost too much to bear. If you also have a thing about travel as well, beware – this one can devour entire afternoons. For example, here’s one map that has captured the imaginations of thousands of globetrotting enthusiasts in a way its creator never intended.

What’s the shortest route that will take you through every country in the world? Reddit user e8odie, laid up in bed with a broken leg, decided to find out. When he posted the resulting map on the site, the comments went nuts. Why? Because even though the map was clearly labelled a thought-experiment, most of the fun was imagining if it was a real land route. Just how practical is it? The general consensus: “not very.”

Here are a few obstacles we spotted for this ultimate round-the-world trip.
1. Darien Gap
The route takes you from Panama to Colombia by plunging into the Darien Gap, a sprawling mat of swampland and forest that was described by the journalist Robert Young Pelton as “probably the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere”. Expect such life-affirming delights as virtually impassable jungle, drug traffickers, kidnappers, understandably trigger-happy paramilitary troops and a truly profound lack of good roads. It’s perfectly possible to visit the Darien Gap, but crossing it? Have fun.

2. Russia By Land
Putting aside the bureaucratic nightmare of getting permission to cross the Bering Strait on foot (or the hot water you can land in if you don’t get it), there’s the small matter of crossing a colossal administrative region of Russia called Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Driving a vehicle designed for even the toughest roads? Too bad, because there aren’t any — barring those laid down in winter. It’s thousands of miles of roadless tundra, forest and Arctic desert. It’s what planes were invented for.

3. North Korea to South Korea
A few years back, it was still possibly to cross the border between Russia and North Korea via the train station at Tumangan — as long as you have the correct visas and a state-approved tour guide. It may still be possible, although it’s certainly not part of North Korea’s attempt to build a tourism industry. You might make it all the way down to the DMZ — but from there? Forget it. Retrace your steps and take the ferry.

4. Israel to Lebanon
Welcome to the Rosh HaNikra border crossing, administered by the United Nations and the Israel Defense Forces. Are you a diplomat or UN official? Do you work well in conditions of extreme diplomatic tension? Can you run faster than Usain Bolt? If your answers to all of these questions aren’t “yes,” stay clear.

5. Armenia to Azerbaijan
Staying with the happy topic of violent border clashes, let’s consider Armenia and Azerbaijan. They went to war in the early ’90s — a situation that endured as a mutually hostile standoff. This “frozen conflict” thawed in 2011 and it’s still pumping out a fair bit of heat. Right now, that border is officially closed — and trying to enter Azerbaijan with a passport that shows signs of being used in Armenia is a fairly terrible idea.

So – what have we missed?

Time is Running Out for the Maldives, a Country That Might Not Be Around for Much Longer

You may have heard of the Maldives. It’s a tropical travel paradise, with white sandy beaches and turquoise waters. An island nation in the Indian Ocean, it is composed of 26 atolls that are home to some of the world’s best diving. The Maldives is a place that’s beautiful, exotic and remote.

It’s also a place that might not be around for much longer.

This week marks the release of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, which by Friday should give a prediction of how much, and when, sea levels will rise. For the island nation of the Maldives that isn’t just a warning, it’s an expiration date.Mohamed Nasheed, the former freely elected president who was expected to be re-elected until accusations of poll fraud suspended the vote, has long been a voice for the threats of climate change to his nation (he’s the guy that held an underwater cabinet meeting), warning that if the world stands by and does nothing, the Maldives will exist no more.

Tourism is one of the Maldives’ main industries, and many of the small islands are set up as luxury resort destinations. While today you can calmly walk, dipping your toes in the calm waters, the risk that these islands will become submerged is on a not so distant horizon.

The effects of climate change are already being felt here, and in an economy that depends on tourism, storms and freak weather can have a significant impact. From erosion to coral reef degradation, the islands are changing, and in big ways.

What’s the future of the Maldives? Only time will tell, but for now, the future does not look bright.

Earthquake Creates New Island Off the Coast of Pakistan

On Tuesday, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Pakistan. In its wake, it has left over 350 people dead, 619 injured and 21,00 homes destroyed. Earthquake destruction is devastating to say the least. But it also gave birth to an island, just off the coast near the town of Gwadar, about 230 miles southwest of the quake’s epicenter.

It’s not really an island, it’s actually what geologists call a “mud volcano,” which is caused by the pressure of sediment breaking up out from underneath the seabed. Basically an island of sand and mud, the mud volcano could last for anywhere from a couple of months to a few years, meaning it’s not here to stay long-term.According to local reporter Bahram Baloch, the island is about 250 to 300 feet in length, and about 60 to 70 feet above the water. You can walk on it, visitors to the island have also said that it is emitting flammable gas.

Within half an hour of the earthquake, inquisitive locals flocked to the island, which according to Rashid Tabrez, the director-general of the Karachi-based National Institute of Oceanography, is the fourth in the region since 1945. Geologists attribute that to the continuing process of continental drift that originally brought the Indian subcontinent to collide with Eurasia. In fact, 700 kilometers to the east of this new mud volcano lies the Makran coast, an area characterized by high seismic activity, and home to several other mud volcanoes.