region:black sea

Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Hezbollah
http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2013/05/tsvetan-tsvetanov-and-hezbollah.html

You might remember that this Tsvetan Tsvetanov is the Interior minister that pretended to have “well-grounded reasons” to implicate Hezbollah in an attack against Israeli tourists:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/bulgaria-hezbollah-bus-bomb-attack
“We have well-grounded reasons to suggest that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah,” said Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Bulgaria’s interior minister

So, with 2 major political scandals on the Tsvetanov, I would bet that the accusation against Hezbollah is now dead.

Russia presses ahead with the rebuilding of its military forces - World Socialist Web Site

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/02/russ-a02.html

Russia presses ahead with the rebuilding of its military forces
By Clara Weiss
2 April 2013

President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials have repeatedly stressed that the upgrading of Russia’s military capacity is a top priority of Kremlin policy and that Russia is preparing for armed conflicts.

The Kremlin is currently carrying out a comprehensive modernization programme of the army and navy. The military rearmament coincides with increased attacks on the working class and fierce conflicts within the ruling elite.

#russie #armement

Bulgaria will not take lead in blacklisting Hezbollah, says PM

La Bulgarie fait-elle marche arrière?

Haaretz Daily Newspaper

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/bulgaria-will-not-take-lead-in-blacklisting-hezbollah-says-pm-1.509874

Bulgaria’s new interim prime minister said on Saturday he would not initiate any move to impose EU sanctions on the Islamist group Hezbollah, even though the country had implicated the Islamist movement in a bombing at a Black Sea resort.

#Liban

Violente exploitation des travailleurs immigrés en Russie

Brutal exploitation of immigrant labor in Russia - World Socialist Web Site

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/15/russ-m15.html

Brutal exploitation of immigrant labor in Russia
By Clara Weiss
15 March 2013

The human rights organization Human Rights Watch released a report in early February documenting the criminal exploitation of immigrant workers employed in the preparations for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Russia has been preparing the Winter Olympics in Sochi on the Black Sea for years. Tens of thousands of workers, including about 16,000 immigrant workers, are building luxury hotels and the infrastructure required for the games.

#migrations #russie #travail

Cameron: help me kick Hizbollah out of Europe | The Jewish Chronicle
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102252/cameron-help-me-kick-hizbollah-out-europe

Important: Inside the Hezbollah Bombing “Hypothesis” of an Israeli Tour Bus (Gareth Porter)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/18/inside-the-hezbollah-bombing-hypothesis

Major revelations about the investigation by the former head of the probe and by a top Bulgarian journalist have further damaged the credibility of the Bulgarian claim to have found links between the suspects and Hezbollah.

The chief prosecutor in charge of the Bulgarian investigation revealed in an interview published in early January that the evidence available was too scarce to name any party as responsible, and that investigators had found a key piece of evidence that appeared to contradict it.

[…]

The decision to call the conclusion an “assumption” or even the weaker “hypothesis” about Hezbollah was obviously a compromise between the preference of the investigators themselves and the demands of the United States and Israel.

[…]

Tsvetanov admitted that the Hezbollah “assumption” had been adopted only “after the middle of January”. That admission indicates that the decision was reached under pressure from Washington, not because of any new evidence.

Why Did Bulgaria Link Hizballah To The Burgas Bus Blast? http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/10153/why-did-bulgaria-link-hizballah-to-the-burgas-bus-

Bulgaria – A Smokescreen for US-Israel?

The statement released by the Bulgarian government has sparked a great deal of speculation. It marks the end of a hectic three-months in which Tsvetanov, the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Mladenov spent a considerable amount of time shuttling between the US and Israel. The high-level visits included meetings with the US President Barack Obama, his chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This all makes it easy to speculate that the US and Israel have been heavily involved in the investigation and invested in any possible outcome that sought to hasten blame on Hizballah.

The US Congress adopted a declaration in December urging the EU to denounce Hizballah as a terrorist organization and asking Obama to provide all necessary support to Bulgaria to conduct its investigation. As the Bulgarian opposition suspected, it is highly possible that government officials were under considerable pressure from the US and Israel, which are trying to use the bombing as a smokescreen to further complicate the intricacies in the Middle East in view of the current situation in Syria and Lebanon.

Cameron : help me kick Hizbollah out of Europe | The Jewish Chronicle
http://www.thejc.com/node/102252

Cameron: help me kick Hizbollah out of Europe

 : normalement, le Jewish Chronicle n’est pas mon truc le samedi matin, mais la nouvelle a été reprise par la presse arabe...

Russia starts construction of the South Stream pipeline
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/pipe-d14.shtml

Russia starts construction of the South Stream pipeline
By Clara Weiss
14 December 2012

On December 7, the first two sections of the South Stream pipeline were laid in the southern Russian city of Anapa on the Black Sea. The pipeline will run along the bottom of the Black Sea and transport gas from southern Russia through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia to Italy, bypassing Ukraine on the way.

South Stream is to be completed by 2015 and will provide Central Europe with up to 63 billion cubic metres of gas per year. Along with the Russian state company Gazprom, which holds 50 percent of shares, other major participants in the project are the German company Wintershall, the French company EDF, and the Italian energy group Eni.

A Dutchman’s Vendetta Against Hezbollah | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/dutchman%E2%80%99s-vendetta-against-hezbollah

However, in his response to Rosenthal’s call, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius indicated that steps were already being taken to attempt to criminalize Hezbollah, and that they should run their course before further action was considered.

Fabius replied that “to designate a group as a terrorist organization, you have to have a judicial process under way against this organization, which is not the case at the present time.”

It could become the case, however, if investigations in Bulgaria into last June’s bombing on the Black Sea coast in which Israelis were killed uphold Israel’s claim that Hezbollah and Iran were behind the attack.

L’Union européenne refuse (à nouveau) de désigner le Hezbollah comme organisation terroriste.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/eu-refuses-israeli-request-blacklist-hezbollah

The European Union turned down a request Tuesday by far-right Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to blacklist Hezbollah as a terror group after last week’s deadly bombing in Bulgaria.

“There is no consensus for putting Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations,” said Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

[…]

The EU would consider this if there were tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terror, she added.

Romiosini – The Soul of Greece http://crete.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/romisini-the-soul-of-greece

The trouble with Romiosini is that it is what could be called Greek fundamentalism. No two Greeks that I know have ever given the same definition. It is tied up with their identity and their soul, but it is not exclusively either. It is about Greekness, but not the Greek State as such. It is Hellenic and Byzantine and it is almost incomprehensible to foreigners and difficult to describe,even by Greeks.

All agree that the origin of the the word Romiosini is from being part of the Roman Empire – eastern Rome which became the Byzantine Empire which was largely Greek and based around its capital Konstantinopoulos and included the borders of the Black Sea and Mikra Asia – Asia Minor. The ‘Megali Idea’ was the concept back in the 1920s that this Empire could be regained, an enterprise which resulted in catastrophe and the exchange of populations with a result of nearly two million refugees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8F43rPkdI0

Theodorakis sings “Romiosini”, one of his best and most politically powerful works, based on the poem of Giannis Ritsos. The songs in this video are: 1) Afta ta dentra, 2) Oloi dipsane, 3) Otan sfiggoun to heri.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN9zmtHxWKs

The songs in this video are: 1) Tosa hronia, 2) Bikan sta sidera, 3) Dentro to dentro.

Maria Farantouri sings Taner Aykol http://vimeo.com/27487333

Lyrics and compositions by Memet Çapan, Arranged by Taner Akyol, Berlin Concerto Chamber Orchestra conducted by Symeon Ionnidis

Charles Lloyd and Maria Farantouri, the Athens Concert http://vimeo.com/29510403

Historic concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus on June 4, 2010. Lloyd and Farantouri are joined by Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland, Sokratis Sinopoulos and Takis Farazis to perform Lloyd originals along with a Byzantine prayer, traditional and contemporary songs of Greece and compositions by Mikis Theodorakis.

History of Romiosini http://greece.org/Romiosini
http://greece.org/Romiosini/agiasofia.gif

#romiosini #rwmiosynh #romiosyni

Russia prepares army for Syrian deployment

Given the worsening crisis in Syria, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported that the Russian army is apparently being prepared for a mission in Syria. Citing anonymous sources in the military leadership, the newspaper said that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the general staff to work out a plan for military operations outside Russia, including in Syria.

The units being prepared for an intervention are the 76th Division of airborne forces (an especially experienced unit of the Russian army), the 15th Army Division, as well as special forces from a brigade of the Black Sea fleet, which has a base in the Syrian port of Tartus.

More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/rusy-j12.shtml

BBC News - ’Vampire’ skeletons found in Bulgaria near Black Sea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106

Archaeologists in Bulgaria have found two medieval skeletons pierced through the chest with iron rods to supposedly stop them from turning into vampires.

The discovery illustrates a pagan practice common in some villages up until a century ago, say historians.

People deemed bad had their hearts stabbed after death, for fear they would return to feast on humans’ blood.

Similar archaeological sites have also been unearthed in other Balkan countries.

Bulgaria is home to around 100 known “vampire skeleton” burials.

Searchers stumbled across the latest two specimens, dating back to the Middle Ages, in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.

ORBIS : carte interactive de la Rome antique
http://orbis.stanford.edu

http://orbis.stanford.edu/images/home_geo05.png

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/plan-a-trip-through-history-with-orbis-a-google-maps-for-ancient-rome/257554

un monde virtuel, idéal pour un écrivain qui veut se plonger dans un univers parallèle !

Spanning one-ninth of the earth’s circumference across three continents, the Roman Empire ruled a quarter of humanity through complex networks of political power, military domination and economic exchange. These extensive connections were sustained by premodern transportation and communication technologies that relied on energy generated by human and animal bodies, winds, and currents.
Conventional maps that represent this world as it appears from space signally fail to capture the severe environmental constraints that governed the flows of people, goods and information. Cost, rather than distance, is the principal determinant of connectivity.
For the first time, ORBIS allows us to express Roman communication costs in terms of both time and expense. By simulating movement along the principal routes of the Roman road network, the main navigable rivers, and hundreds of sea routes in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and coastal Atlantic, this interactive model reconstructs the duration and financial cost of travel in antiquity.
Taking account of seasonal variation and accommodating a wide range of modes and means of transport, ORBIS reveals the true shape of the Roman world and provides a unique resource for our understanding of premodern history.

#cartographie #histoire

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics : The Circassians Cry Genocide - The Daily Beast

May 21, 2012

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/20/sochi-2014-winter-olympics-the-circassians-cry-genocide.html

Sochi, the site for the 2014 winter Olympics, just happens to be where the russians dispossessed an entire nation exactly 150 years earlier. the survivors’ descendants say it was genocide—and now they’re demanding justice.

Vladimir Putin may think he has trouble enough on Moscow’s streets without worrying about demonstrators outside the country. If so, perhaps he should think again. This week in Istanbul, New York, Brussels, and other world cities, protesters are taking aim at his most cherished project: the 2014 Winter Olympics. Although the facilities at the Caucasus Mountains resort of Sochi are already winning enthusiastic praise from visiting skiers, thousands of angry activists are determined to spoil Putin’s party.

Russie Caucase Sotchi

Un pirate, qu’est que c’est ?

Le pirate et la piraterie désignent une forme de banditisme pratiquée sur mer. Cependant, les pirates ne se limitent pas seulement aux pillages de bateau, et attaquent parfois de petites villes côtières.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator (e.g. one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel). The term has been used to refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

Bei Piraterie (von griechisch πειρᾶν peiran, „versuchen, unternehmen, auskundschaften“, und πεĩρα peira, „Wagnis, Unternehmen, Überfall“ über πειρατής, peirātḗs und lateinisch pirata, „Seeräuber“) oder Seeräuberei handelt es sich um Gewalttaten, Eigentumsdelikte oder Freiheitsberaubungen, die zu eigennützigen Zwecken unter Gebrauch eines See- oder Luftfahrzeugs auf hoher See oder in anderen Gebieten verübt werden, die keiner staatlichen Gewalt unterliegen. Bis zu einer völkerrechtlichen Vertragsregelung 1958 wurden unter Piraterie meist dieselben Taten verstanden, soweit sie überhaupt auf See oder auch von See aus begangen wurden. Staatliche Maßnahmen stellen, selbst wenn sie unrechtmäßig sind, keine Piraterie dar. Heute sind solche Maßnahmen Kriegs- und Behördenschiffen vorbehalten, im Rahmen der Kaperei wurden sie bis 1856 jedoch auch von staatlich autorisierten Privaten (Freibeuter, Kaperfahrer) vorgenommen und waren dadurch in ihrer äußeren Erscheinungsform häufig nicht von Piraterie zu unterscheiden. Keine Piraterie im eigentlichen Sinn sind auch Strand-, Fluss- und Luftpiraterie.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraterie

On se rend compte à quel point les définitions ne font pas l’unanimité quand on suit la discussion autour des positions politiques des pirates :

►http://seenthis.net/messages/69508
http://seenthis.net/messages/69508#message69511

In former Communist states, populations are shrinking fast - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/in-former-communist-states-populations-are-shrinking-fast-7606243.htm

More than 20 years after the fall of communism, the wealth gap between the east and west of Europe persists, and countries from the Black Sea to the Baltic are shedding people at an alarming rate. While membership in the European Union has brought prosperity to many, it has also made it easier to emigrate, drawing young people out of the east and leaving behind an ever older and poorer population.

#démographie #post-URSS #Europe #développement

EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting | Techdirt
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111219/02385917123/eu-council-quietly-adopts-acta-hiding-it-agriculture-fisheries-meeting.sht

from its penultimate position on the agenda it was clearly not really regarded as very important, and was just waved through. Here’s how the official press release (pdf) reported it:
The Council adopted a decision authorising the signing of an anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (#ACTA) with Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States.

ah l’#europe ! et le déni de #démocratie

Iran kills PJAK deputy military chief | Iraq News | Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-68332-Iran-kills-PJAK-deputy-military-chief.html

Anti Iranian Kurdish party, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), said that the Iranian shelling has killed its deputy military leader and announced that its fighters killed 123 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards during clashes between the two parties this month.

“September 3rd 2011, during the second stage of Iranian Revolutionary Guards attack against Kandil mountains Majid Kawian, known as Comrade Samkou, deputy commander general of the forces of eastern Kurdistan in the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, was killed along with Comrade Ruzhat Butan after being hit by a mortar in heavy Iranian shelling in Kutaman region,” said the party in a statement a copy of which reached Alsumarianews.

Le détroit de Lombok et ses courants :
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/3/1291403580825/internal-waves-emanating--008.jpg

Traversé une partie dans une coquille de noix large de 80cm, avec vagues de trois mètres autour et la peur dans les yeux du type à la barre. Jamais été aussi heureux d’arriver sur le rivage.

Série satellite complète :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/dec/06/satellite-eye-on-earth
#geo #satellite