The space shuttle Endeavour bolted off its seaside launch pad in Florida on Monday, carrying six astronauts on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. The 4:14 a.m. EST (9:14 a.m. British time) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Centre shattered the predawn tranquillity with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day. "What a beautiful launch we had this morning," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space flight. "This is a great start to a very complicated mission."
The 4:14 a.m. EST (9:14 a.m. British time) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Centre shattered the predawn tranquillity with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day.
"What a beautiful launch we had this morning," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space flight. "This is a great start to a very complicated mission."
Neil Gaiman has been picking up literary prizes left, right and centre over the last year, but the fantasy author announced this weekend what could be the biggest honour yet for a long-time fan of Doctor Who: writing an episode of the television series detailing the adventures of the Time Lord.
He's much better when he has the unsullied mindscapes of the inner eye to work upon. keep to the Fen Causeway
On clear winter nights, from his chalet 3,400 feet up in the Alps of Switzerland's Berner Oberland, Roman Polanski is afforded spectacular views of a star-studded heaven forming the backdrop to a breathtaking mountain panorama heavy with snow. It is the reason, no doubt, why his holiday home of 30 years is called "Milky Way". Yet "Milky Way" on Alpenblickstrasse, Gstaad - a winding road in the Swiss ski resort famed for its super-rich celebrity population - is as close to experiencing the stars as Polanski will get when his latest movie The Ghost Writer premieres at the Berlin film festival on Wednesday.
Yet "Milky Way" on Alpenblickstrasse, Gstaad - a winding road in the Swiss ski resort famed for its super-rich celebrity population - is as close to experiencing the stars as Polanski will get when his latest movie The Ghost Writer premieres at the Berlin film festival on Wednesday.
The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, has closed to the public due to technical problems just a month after it was formally opened. The observation deck on the Dubai building's 124th floor, which had been open since the building was formally named on Jan 4, has been closed indefinitely because of unspecified technical problems. At 2,716 feet tall, the tower contains a hotel, apartments and offices. The first occupants of the apartments were due to move in later this month.
The observation deck on the Dubai building's 124th floor, which had been open since the building was formally named on Jan 4, has been closed indefinitely because of unspecified technical problems.
At 2,716 feet tall, the tower contains a hotel, apartments and offices. The first occupants of the apartments were due to move in later this month.
Five centuries of Turkish domination left their mark on culture, cuisine, language and even gestures in Balkan countries. It is an influence that is still apparent in attitudes that have affected the pace of integration in the European Union for a number of Balkan states. For the most part, Balkan scholars tend to overlook the influence of Ottoman heritage on contemporary Balkan identities. In so doing they are largely aligned with public opinion in the Balkans, which also prefers to minimize the significance of an Ottoman legacy that is nonetheless omnipresent. Maria Todorova, author of Imagining the Balkans (Oxford University Press, 1997), has sparked controversy by accusing official historians and other Balkan state sanctioned academics of disguising the truth about the region's Ottoman past and heritage, which is often denied or perceived with disdain. In her native Bulgaria, where "Turkish subjugation" is the only officially sanctioned term for the Ottoman era, Todorova goes even further to suggest that it is no longer a question of studying "the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans," but rather of studying the "the Ottoman legacy that is the Balkans." And as a starting point, she proposes the etymology of the word "balkan," which comes from the Turkish for "wooded mountain." This heritage is perceptible on every level of social interaction. For example, in political life, it is expressed by an exclusively extra-institutional approach to problem solving (pazarlık - bargaining). Then there is the absence of an indigenous cultural elite. In all of the regions of the Ottoman empire, elites were mainly composed of intellectuals who had been educated abroad: a situation that remained relatively unchanged when the different nations of the empire finally obtained their independence. At the same time, the lack of a local bourgeoisie or aristocracy, and the failure to industrialize that characterized the Ottoman era continued to contribute to the economic weakness of Balkan countries well into the 20th century.
Five centuries of Turkish domination left their mark on culture, cuisine, language and even gestures in Balkan countries. It is an influence that is still apparent in attitudes that have affected the pace of integration in the European Union for a number of Balkan states.
For the most part, Balkan scholars tend to overlook the influence of Ottoman heritage on contemporary Balkan identities. In so doing they are largely aligned with public opinion in the Balkans, which also prefers to minimize the significance of an Ottoman legacy that is nonetheless omnipresent. Maria Todorova, author of Imagining the Balkans (Oxford University Press, 1997), has sparked controversy by accusing official historians and other Balkan state sanctioned academics of disguising the truth about the region's Ottoman past and heritage, which is often denied or perceived with disdain. In her native Bulgaria, where "Turkish subjugation" is the only officially sanctioned term for the Ottoman era, Todorova goes even further to suggest that it is no longer a question of studying "the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans," but rather of studying the "the Ottoman legacy that is the Balkans." And as a starting point, she proposes the etymology of the word "balkan," which comes from the Turkish for "wooded mountain."
This heritage is perceptible on every level of social interaction. For example, in political life, it is expressed by an exclusively extra-institutional approach to problem solving (pazarlık - bargaining). Then there is the absence of an indigenous cultural elite. In all of the regions of the Ottoman empire, elites were mainly composed of intellectuals who had been educated abroad: a situation that remained relatively unchanged when the different nations of the empire finally obtained their independence. At the same time, the lack of a local bourgeoisie or aristocracy, and the failure to industrialize that characterized the Ottoman era continued to contribute to the economic weakness of Balkan countries well into the 20th century.
Right on the greek border is town of Melnik, an old fashioned Bulgarian town which is a huge tourist destination. that it survived as a 19th century relic is largely because its entire population of 20,000 were slaughtered in a single morning. Nobody in the local area forgets stuff like that. Bulgarians hate Turks and conversely love russians because they came and freed them in WWI. keep to the Fen Causeway
