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POPSArmistice Day November 11, 1918 The armistice was formally signed in Foch's railway carriage on 11 November (in 1940 Hitler exacted revenge by forcing the French to sign an armistice - on German terms - in the same railway carriage). The armistice initially ran for 30 days but was regularly renewed until the formal peace treaty was signed at Versailles the following year. Should the Germans have deviated in any way from the terms of the armistice the Allies warned that a resumption of hostilities would begin within 48 hours. The terms of the armistice required the Germans to evacuate German-occupied territories on the Western Front within two weeks. Allied forces were to occupy the left bank of the Rhine within a month, and a neutral zone established on the right bank. View a map detailing the final Allied offensive of the war. http://www.firstworldwar.com/maps/graphics/maps_69_wfront_final_off_(1600).jpg
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POPSArt on the Edge-Architects of Air - Amazing ! Levity II, is the last luminarium designed by Architect of Air. It is inspired by the beauty of natural geometry and by Islamic architecture. It is a inflatable sculpture of 800 square meters made up of labyrinthine tunnels accessible for all people. It's a sensual world of liquid, light, color and music. All the lighting is natural light filtered through its different layers. In fact, this sculpture is only open when there is natural light from the sun in order to enjoy walking through is labyrinths and tunnels Luminarium Installation, Sziget Festival, Budapest Hungary, 2008-08-17.
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POPSWalking speed in different cities 32) Blantyre (Malawi); 31.60 A new study by quirky psychologist Richard Wiseman has revealed that people's average walking speed in cities has increased by 10% in the last decade. People from 32 countries were timed walking over an 18 metre (60 foot) stretch of un-crowded pavement, and the results were compared to findings from a similar study conducted in the 1990s (by Robert V Levine at California State University).
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POPSAfter Russia's Invasion Of Georgia, What's Next? – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain. Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia, because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s oil and natural gas reserves. By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members. Second, the United States needs some straight talk with our friends in Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative. However, Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks.
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POPSPetty Capitalism in the Centre of a Post-socialist Capital Transformations in the political and economic spheres after the collapse of communism determined rather localized responses to these forces. It was not a linear development to reach the Western societal models, as “transition” assumed. Even if there was a growing internal and external pressure to rationalize and formalize economy in the capitalist logic, the mechanisms they fostered functioned after a period of uncertainty. Opposite to transitology, it is argued that the formalization of economy is coexistent with informal practices of economy - that sometimes have lasted since the Communist Era. In this sense, I find extremely poignant the resultant blend of formal and informal economy that characterizes most of these countries. Therefore, I will further focus on a seasonal market held in a central square of Bucharest.
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POPSEurope's New Pro-American Direction Europe’s new political configuration has already partially manifested itself in NATO’s decision in Bucharest to support deployment of U.S. missile defense assets in Poland and the Czech Republic. Even the Bucharest Summit, however, reveals continuing problems, such as Europe’s reluctance to start Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward ultimate NATO membership. For both America and Europe’s leading nations, therefore, the diplomatic chances of preventing Iran from achieving its objectives are rapidly diminishing. Although tough sanctions are at this point almost certainly too late, they would at least demonstrate that Italy and other Europeans are preparing for the even more difficult step that may be required, namely changing the regime in Tehran, or, as a last resort, the targeted use of military force against Iran’s nuclear program.
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POPSNATO Leaders Agree To Endorse U.S. Missile Defense Plans The endorsement is contained in a communique that the leaders of the 26-nation military alliance will adopt Thursday during their summit being held here, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the statement's release. The statement calls on all NATO members to explore ways in which the planned U.S. project, to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, can be linked with future missile shields elsewhere. It says leaders should come up with recommendations to be considered at their next meeting in 2009, the officials said.
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POPSFrance and Germany Thwart Bush's Plans Many German papers on Wednesday questioned whether enlargement eastwards would really do anything to enhance security. US President George W. Bush seems determined to put pressure on his European allies to welcome Ukraine and Georgia into the NATO alliance, despite reluctance in Paris and Berlin to unnecessarily provoke Russia with such a move. In his keynote speech delivered hours before the 26-nation alliance meets in Bucharest on Wednesday, he said "NATO membership must remain open to all of Europe's democracies that seek it, and are ready to share the responsibilities of NATO membership." However, Moscow has made it clear that it will view any enlargement of NATO to its borders as a threat. Russia is particularly sensitive to any further loss of influence in the states it used to control. spiegel.de
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POPSSarkozy Confirms French Battalion Deployment To Afghanistan Sarkozy has also told the NATO summit that he will decide next year on France's return to the alliance's integrated military command, over four decades since Gen. Charles de Gaulle pulled out. Both moves are a sign of Sarkozy's policy of drawing closer to the U.S.-led NATO alliance, although his speech also stressed France's desire to build up the defense role of the European Union. The deployment in Afghanistan follows months of lobbying by the United States to persuade European allies to send more troops to the frontlines of the fight against the Taliban.
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POPS24 hours in pictures April 02 3 Baghdad, Iraq: A man in a burnt-out room in the Sadr City Shia district. The building was struck during a US airstrike 13 Mumbai, India: Make-up artists help a model prior to a show during the Lakme Indian Fashion Week 16 Bucharest, Romania: George Bush, seen through the view finder of a video camera, delivers a speech on the first day of the NATO summit 17 Johannesburg, South Africa: Hot air balloons soar over the Magaliesberg mountains 18 Cuenca, Spain: The skull of an animal in Alarcon's reservoir 1 Nairobi, Kenya: Residents of Kayole protest against police harassment and alleged execution of arrested suspects from the area
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POPSBuying A Human Being for 50 Bucks "It's one thing when you are planning an effort like this, this is a work of journalism — I'm not going to interfere with my subjects. It's another thing when you are in an underground brothel in Bucharest, who has this girl with Down Syndrome, who you know is undergoing rape several times a day. When this girl is offered to me in trade for a used car ... I walk away ... it's not an easy thing to do," he says."
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POPSRUBBISH! Don't Read. More LIES. Apocalyptic Crap. "Washington is still negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic over the proposed "third site" - after Alaska and California - for the system. The plan is for 10 interceptor missiles to be based in Poland and a long-range "X-band" radar similar to that at Fylingdales to be based in the Czech Republic. US officials today described Russian objections to the plan as "geopolitical" which in the long run would amount to "much ado about nothing". There remains widespread scepticism in Nato about Washington's claims regarding the need and capability of a missile defence system and the intentions of the Iranians, alliance officials admitted today. There is concern in particular about who would control and decide the firing of anti-missile interceptors situated in Europe. The issue will be on the agenda of the NATO summit in Bucharest in early April. ...Guardian
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POPSEU Wraps Bush-Rendition-Bad-Boys "Yesterday's revelations confirm that the European parliament has a moral duty to continue its inquiry," Fava told Reuters in Rome. "We still don't know everything that we have the right to know about this issue." Last February the EU approved Fava's report accusing European governments and services of accepting and concealing secret US flights of terrorism suspects. Italy has one of the best documented cases of what prosecutors believe was CIA rendition. 26 Americans - nearly all believed to be CIA agents - are being tried in absentia in Milan on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect in 2003 and secretly flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
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POPSSewage Tours Whichever way the word Victorian was being used, it's undeniable that sewage systems and water mains were one of the great achievements of the 19th Century; and in Britain, the most famous civil engineer associated with such works is a remarkable figure, who rejoiced in the splendid name of Sir Joseph William Bazalgette. And he was not the only Briton whose 19th Century construction works were primarily subterranean. William Lindley, who made his reputation as engineer in chief to the city of Hamburg in the 1840s and his son, Sir William Heerlin Lindley, who did similar work in Moscow, Bucharest, Prague, Trieste and Vienna. It's highly unlikely that Bazalgette or the Lindleys would ever have imagined that their great subterranean works might become the backdrops to films, or tourist attractions in their own right.
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