Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Monday, November 9, 2015

Israel hosts its largest-ever international air force exercise. Until November 3rd, local media reports. Not far from where the Russian Airbus 321 flight crashed. Tragic coincidence?

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Photo essay / Drill aims to test the mettle of the men and women at the controls, rather than the technical capabilities of their fighter jets

Israel hosts its largest-ever international air force exercise

Israeli, American, Greek, and Polish air personnel square off against a fictional enemy state in two-week drill

By Judah Ari Gross October 30, 2015, 12:53 am 46

Israeli and foreign fighter jets fly in formation through cloudy skies over the Negev desert during the ‘Blue Flag’ exercise at Ovda Airfield near Eilat on October 27, 2015. (Israeli Air Force)

Air forces from around the world have gathered deep in the Arava desert in the south of Israel for the past week and a half to take part in the largest aerial exercise in the history of the Israeli Air Force. The “Blue Flag” exercise, which is continuing through November 3, pits the Israeli Air Force, the United States Air Force, Greece’s Hellenic Air Force and the Polish Air Force against a fictional enemy state, the captain in charge of all IAF exercises told The Times of Israel Thursday night. A number of other countries, including Germany, also sent pilots and officers to observe the exercise, but did not take part. This joint drill is the second “Blue Flag” exercise; the first took place in 2013 and was the largest multi-lateral exercise the IAF had ever hosted. The various air forces collaborated closely through every step of the current exercise, the IAF captain said, from planning to execution and finally to debriefing.

Though the exercise began on October 18, planning for it started nearly eight months ago, the Israeli official said, with an IAF representative contacting each participating country and initially asking, “What do you want to train for?” Those requests came together to form the plan for “Blue Flag,” which sent Israeli and American F-15 squadrons, along with Israeli, Hellenic and Polish F-16 squadrons, flying through nearly all of Israel’s air space, firing simulated weapons against fictional enemy missile launchers, convoys and aircraft, he said.

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Israel hosts largest-ever intl air force drill, pitting troops against fictional enemy

Published time: 30 Oct, 2015 14:56

Israel is hosting its largest-ever international air force exercise. The two-week 'Blue Flag' drill features Israeli, American, Greek and Polish troops in a battle against a fictional enemy state.

The Blue Flag drill consists of Israeli and American F-15 squadrons, as well as Israeli, Hellenic, and Polish F-16 squadrons flying through Israeli airspace while firing simulated weapons against fictional enemy missile launchers, convoys, and aircraft, the Israeli Air Force captain in charge of the exercise told the Times of Israel.

However, the captain said the exercise is designed to test the capabilities of the troops involved, rather than the military equipment itself. “We wanted it to be challenging for the airmen, rather than for the machines,” said the IAF captain, who could not be named due to security reasons.

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The following maps are presented simply to put the sheer proximity of the military exercises and the Russian Airbus A321 crash.

Russian Airbus A321 Crash – Can Putin Feel What Malaysians & Dutch Felt?

Russian Airbus A321-200 Flight 7K9268 Crash - FlightRadar24 Map

However, the Egyptian government has rubbished that the plane was shot down by missile. The Russian concluded that the Russian Airbus A321 that crashed in the Sinai broke up in mid-air at 36,000-feet. The plane had been heading from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to the Russian city of St Petersburg before the crash.

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CULTUREEL WOORDENBOEK

Suez-crisis map of Troop Movements

http://www.cultureelwoordenboek.nl/images/suez_war.gif

Suez-crisis

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Euroflights.info

Eilat with airports

Eilat Israel Port On a Map

Eilat is the southernmost city in Israel. Eilat is located on the Red Sea and is an important port for Israel and a popular resort town

Ovda Airport

Ovda Airport is located 45 km to the north from Eilat.

King Hussein International Airport, Jordan

King Hussein International Airport is located 10 km to the north east from Eilat.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, celebrated his 70th birthday with President Vladimir Putin. Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to be furious

The Telegraph

Angela Merkel aide 'attended Vladimir Putin party'

Angela Merkel "furious" after reports that her foreign policy expert attended Gerhard Schroeder's birthday party with Vladimir Putin

Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, celebrated his 70th birthday with President Vladimir Putin at St Petersburg's Jussapov Palace on Monday night Photo: GETTY IMAGES

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

5:44PM BST 01 May 2014

Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to be furious following reports that her own party's foreign policy expert attended a much criticised party in St Petersburg with Vladimir Putin.

Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, celebrated his 70th birthday with President Vladimir Putinat St Petersburg's Jussapov Palace on Monday night.

German media reports said Philipp Missfelder, the chief foreign policy expert for Mrs Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party was also a guest at the controversial party held by a subsidiary of the Russian energy giant, Gazprom.

Mr Schroeder, who is on the board of Gazprom and a personal friend of Mr Putin was criticised in Germany on Tuesday for openly rubbing shoulders with the Russian president while German diplomatic observers were being held hostage by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Mrs Merkel was on Thursday reported to have asked Mr Putin for help in getting the hostages freed during a telephone conversation between the two leaders.

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Thursday, January 23, 2014

The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking

Green Fade-Out:Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals

By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Brussels

Europe may be backing away from its ambitious climate protection goals.

DPA

Europe may be backing away from its ambitious climate protection goals.

The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking -- jeopardizing Germany's touted energy revolution in the process.

The climate between Brussels and Berlin is polluted, something European Commission officials attribute, among other things, to the "reckless" way German Chancellor Angela Merkel blocked stricter exhaust emissions during her re-election campaign to placate domestic automotive manufacturers like Daimler and BMW. This kind of blatant self-interest, officials complained at the time, is poisoning the climate.

But now it seems that the climate is no longer of much importance to the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, either. Commission sources have long been hinting that the body intends to move away from ambitious climate protection goals. On Tuesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported as much.
At the request of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, EU member states are no longer to receive specific guidelines for the development ofrenewable energy. The stated aim of increasing the share of green energy across the EU to up to 27 percent will hold. But how seriously countries tackle this project will no longer be regulated within the plan. As of 2020 at the latest -- when the current commitment to further increase the share of green energy expires -- climate protection in the EU will apparently be pursued on a voluntary basis.
Climate Leaders No More?
With such a policy, the European Union is seriously jeopardizing its global climate leadership role. Back in 2007, when Germany held the European Council presidency, the body decided on a climate and energy legislation package known as the "20-20-20" targets, to be fulfilled by the year 2020. They included:

a 20 percent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions;

raising the share of EU energy consumption produced from renewable resources to 20 percent;

Friday, October 25, 2013

Poland could halve demand for coal by 2030, study says

A group of miners pose for a photograph inside of an excavation corridor at Zofiowka coal mine in Jastrzebie Zdroj, southern Poland April 3, 2013. REUTERS/Peter Andrews

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO | Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09am EDT

(Reuters) - Poland could halve its demand for coal by 2030 with a shift to renewable energies that would end its image as a laggard in European Union efforts to slow climate change, a study showed on Friday.
The report, by researchers in Germany and Poland, renewable energy groups and environmental group Greenpeace, included a foreword by ex-Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki who called it a "feasible, realistic scenario".
It estimated that Poland, which now generates 90 percent of its electricity from coal, could create 100,000 jobs with a shift to wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal and solar power by 2030.
The scenario would require investment of $264 billion, double the $132 billion cost of business as usual. Still, free renewable energies would be cheaper in the long run by eliminating costs of fuel to generate electricity, it said.
Poland "has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to move beyond coal," it said. "Poland is home to a geriatric energy system, based on coal. Its power plants are old with about 70 percent of them being over 30 years old."

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Reality Check: Germany's Defective Green Energy Game Plan

A Commentary By Alexander Neubacher

All of the wind turbines, rooftop solar panels, hydroelectric and biogas plants in Germany have not reduced CO2 emissions in Europe by a single gram.

DPA

All of the wind turbines, rooftop solar panels, hydroelectric and biogas plants in Germany have not reduced CO2 emissions in Europe by a single gram.

Germany pretends to be a pioneer in the green revolution. But its massively expensive Energiewende has done nothing to make the environment cleaner or encourage genuine efficiency. One writer argues: Either do it right, or don't do it at all.

So, perhaps you've heard about Germany's heroic green revolution, about how it's overhauling its entire energy infrastructure to embrace renewable energy sources? Well, in reality, our chimney stacks are spewing out more than ever, and coal consumption jumped 8 percent in the first half of 2013. Germans are pumping more climate-killing CO2 into the air than they have in years. And people are surprised.

Why coal, you might ask? Aren't Germans installing rooftop solar panels and wind turbines everywhere? What's being done with the billions of euros from the renewable energy surcharge, which is tacked onto Germans' power bills to subsidize green energy and due to rise again soon? This is certainly not how we imagined the Energiewende, Germany's push to abandon nuclear energy and promote renewable sources, which Chancellor Angela Merkel's government launched in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. This same government acts as if this coal fever were merely a growing pain or transitional problem. But that's not true. Instead, it stems from structural flaws in the Energiewende. Renewable energy and the coal boom are causally linked. The insane system to promote renewable energy sources ensures that, with each new rooftop solar panel and each additional wind turbine, more coal is automatically burned and more CO2 released into the atmosphere.
Counterincentives Galore
Indeed, Merkel's Energiewende is morphing into an environment killer. It burdens the climate, accelerates the greenhouse effect and causes irreversible damage.
Take the fluctuation/storage problem: Sun and wind sometimes provide an abundance of electricity, and then nothing at all -- depending on the time of day and the weather. When they are pumping out lots of power, however, very little of the surplus can be stored because there is a lack of appropriate technology and the incentives to develop it.

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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

German Report: How Wealthy Saudi Sheikhs are Exploiting Syria's Girls [English Subtitles]

Published on Sep 30, 2013

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled to neighboring Jordan from their home country in light of the ongoing war in Syria. The distress in the hopelessly overcrowded refugee camps is great. Unscrupulous traffickers have recognized this and made a business out of it. So-called 'matchmakers' sell Syrian refugee teenager girls to rich Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia. Subtitles by: SyrianFight Source: RTL (Germany)

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Swimming with Swans: Escaped Seal Takes Over Zoo Pond

Photo Gallery: Wayward Seal Settles at Zoo Pond

DPA

Visitors to the Karlsruhe Zoo are lining up to see Zola, a young seal who escaped her enclosure and took up residence in a pond close by.

DPA

Some three weeks ago, Zola managed to wiggle out of her enclosure and flop a short distance across to the Karlsruhe Zoo's "swan pond." Since then, she has evaded capture, happy to splash around the pond, which is also inhabited by turtles, fish, ducks and swans, of course.
Word of the spirited seal's adventure in the southern German city has spread, and now there are reportedly long lines of people waiting to catch a glimpse of her. But many have left disappointed. Zola prefers to wait until visitors leave for the day to come out and frolic, zookeeper Irene Schicker-Ney told news agency DPA on Thursday.
She reportedly enjoys swimming around in solitude, and gardeners say they have even seen her spend the night in one of the boats that visitors can use to ride across the pond.

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Friday, August 30, 2013

Archaeologists Unearth 10,400-Year-Old hunter-gatherer settlements in the Bolivian Amazon: the site of Isla del Tesoro

Archaeologists Unearth 10,400-Year-Old Settlements in Bolivia

Aug 29, 2013 by Sci-News.com

An international team of scientists from Switzerland, Australia, Germany and the United States has discovered remains of three hunter-gatherer settlements in the western Amazon.

This map shows location of three hunter-gatherer settlements in the Bolivian Amazon: the site of Isla del Tesoro – SM1, a site west of the Mamoré River – SM2, a site east of Trinidad – SM3 (Lombardo U et al).

Their study, reported in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, focuses on a region in the Bolivian Amazon thought to be rarely occupied by pre-agricultural communities due to unfavorable environmental conditions.
Hundreds of ‘forest islands’- small forested mounds – are found throughout the region. Their origins attributed to termites, erosion or ancient human activity.
The team reports that three of these islands are shell middens, mounds of seashells left by settlers more than 10,000 years ago. Samples of soil from these mounds revealed a dense accumulation of freshwater snail shells, animal bones and charcoal forming the middens.

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