[caption id="attachment_229367" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Luxembourg City Hall © Cayambe/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany ("Luxembourg Agreement", "Wiedergutmachungsabkommen" or "Reparations Agreement") was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of "resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees" after the war, an...
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[caption id="attachment_227045" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Stammhauses der Riegeler Brauerei © Andreas Schwarzkopf/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The brewer's star (also: beer star, beer pointer, brew star, in the Upper Palatinate also Bierzoigl and Zoiglstern) is a six-pointed star (hexagram) that is used as a guild sign for brewers and maltsters. The brewer's star is also the symbol for the issuing office of the house drink of a brewery, which is therefore also called "star" or "stars". The six-pointed Zoigl sta...
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[caption id="attachment_162292" align="aligncenter" width="590"] The Masjid al-Haram and Kaaba © Ariandra 03/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Mecca is a city in the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of that kingdom's Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km (43 mi) inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during the hajj ("pilgrimage") period held in the twelft...
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[caption id="attachment_151140" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Luciani71/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Mâcon is a small city in east-central France. It is the prefecture of the department of Saône-et-Loire, located in Burgundy. Mâcon is home to over 35,000 residents, who are referred to in French as Mâconnais. The area west and north of Mâcon produces well-known wines from the Chardonnay grape. The best known appellation of the Mâconnais is Pouilly-Fuissé. The city lies on the western bank of the Saône rive...
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[caption id="attachment_226756" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Palio di Siena on Piazza del Campo © flickr.com - Mirco/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Piazza del Campo is the main public space of the historic center of Siena, Tuscany, Italy and is regarded as one of Europe's greatest medieval squares. It is renowned worldwide for its beauty and architectural integrity. The and its Torre del Mangia, as well as various palazzi signorili surround the shell-shaped piazza. At the northwest edge is the Fonte Gaia. The twice...
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[caption id="attachment_217334" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © ChetChang/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]San Diego (Spanish for 'Saint Didacus') is a city in the U.S. state of California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and immediately adjacent to the United States–Mexico border. With an estimated population of 1.4 million as of July 1, 2019, San Diego is the eighth most populous city in the United States and second most populous in California (after Los Angeles). The city is the county seat of San Diego County, t...
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[caption id="attachment_223679" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Guilin © Jakub Halun/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Guilin is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the north. Its name means "forest of sweet osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant sweet osmanthus trees located in the region. The city has long been renowned for its scenery of karst topography. Its population was 4,747,963 as of t...
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[caption id="attachment_24726" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Building of WSL Institute for Snow and Avalange Research SLF in Davos Dorf © Capricorn4049/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF engages in research, scientific services, teaching and public relations, focusing on snow, the atmosphere, natural hazards, permafrost and mountain ecosystems.
The SLF's employees are active in both basic and applied research. The objective of their work is to develop practical i...
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[caption id="attachment_150686" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Grand Hotel de l'Europe © Pressemappe/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Bad Gastein is a spa town in the district of St. Johann im Pongau, in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Picturesquely situated in a high valley of the Hohe Tauern mountain range, it is known for the Gastein Waterfall and a variety of Belle Époque hotel buildings. Bad Gastein is located in the historic Pongau region, the municipal area of about 171 square kilometres (66 sq mi) is the larges...
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[caption id="attachment_167374" align="aligncenter" width="465"] Carl von Clausewitz by Karl Wilhelm Wach[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral" (psychological) and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War), was unfinished at his death. Clausewitz was a realist in many different senses and, while in some respects a romantic, also drew heavily on the rationalist ideas of the European Enlightenment. Clausewitz'...
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