1. German soldiers posing with a horse in the Second World War. At the beginning of the war in the German army had mounted division, in a war they used the horses for the exploration and transportation of ammunition and other provisions.

2. Kinolog-Marine calms his German shepherd, to make an X-ray, after it fired a Japanese sniper in the Solomon Islands. Unfortunately, the dog di*d from injuries.

3. An American sailor is photographed with a monkey on Bermuda during the Second World War.

4. The horse is ready for combat. Animals are often used to transport food.

5. American soldiers and local children ride on an elephant in Burma during the Second World War. Soldiers are often met with exotic animals such as monkeys, camels and elephants.

6. Soldier sleeping with his best four-legged friend Dobermans. In war, animals and people are especially close.

]]> http://www.hossit.com/animals-war/feed/ 24 http://www.hossit.com/war-congo/ http://www.hossit.com/war-congo/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:21:11 +0000 admin http://www.hossit.com/?p=1158 In the Democratic Republic of the Congo it’s war again. But what does it mean again? She goes there for ten years, almost without ceasing. Just now, it flared up anew after a brief lull in the beginning of the year. In August the rebel General Laurent Nkunda with the Tutsi rebels launched an offensive on government forces of President Joseph Kabila of supporting Hutu militias. UN troops are in the country, to cope with the situation and can not defend themselves for the most part, not the civilian population, which is carved thugs on both sides. A quarter of a million refugees in the country is maturing extremely serious humanitarian catastrophe. To plunder, to shoot more joined on the men of the tribe and the Mai-Mai and Hutu movement with the romantic name of “kil*ing together.” The whole cocktail of carefully mixed throughout the country already ravaged by the years of civil strife.

The word desánt, as used in the Vozdushno-Desantnye Vojska, is a borrowing of the French descente (‘debarkation’ or ‘landing’). It is also used by the Russian Ground Forces for the desantno-shturmoviye batal′ony, the airmobile assault battalions, and by the Russian Naval Infantry in voyenno-morskoy desant , an amphibious landing. The airborne, air-assault, and amphibious troops of all services are referred to as desantniki, which literally means ‘those who land’. The term desant is defined by Radzievskii as:

Troops intended for landing, or which have already landed on enemy-occupied territory for the purpose of conducting combat operations. According to the transportation method used, a landing force may be amphibious, airborne, or combined; and according to its scale and purpose, such a force may be strategic, operational, or tactical.

Originally formed in the Soviet Union during the mid 1930s, they were massively expanded during World War II. They then formed up to ten Airborne Corps with numerous Independent Airborne Brigades, with most or all achieving “Guards”  status. 9th Guards Army was eventually formed with three Guards Rifle Corps (37th, 38th, and 39th) being of Airborne divisions. At the end of the war they were reconstituted as Guards Rifle Divisions.

The Soviet airborne forces were mostly used as ‘leg’ infantry during the war. Only a few small airborne drops were carried out in the first desperate days of Operation Barbarossa, in the vicinity of Kiev, Odessa, and the Kerch peninsula. The two significant airborne operations of the war were the Vyazma operation of February–March 1942, involving 4th Airborne Corps, and the Dnepr/Kiev operation of September 1943, involving a temporary corps formation consisting of 1st, 3rd, and 5th Airborne Brigades.

10.  Gin and Tonic, India

Gin was first introduced to tonic to offset its bitter taste so the British, who were occupying India at the time, could stomach the stuff as an anti-malarial. The Brits ended up fancying the crisp combo, adding a wedge of lime, and it became a mainstay of the tropics long after the empire fell. Try it on the beach in Goa while watching the sun set.

9. Rosé, Côte d’Azur, France

Drinking pink has just started to catch on stateside, but a glass of chilled dry rosé has long been de rigueur in the seaside cafés of France’s Côte d’Azur, alongside fish soup and langoustines. Typically made by removing the skins of the red grapes after crushing, rosé is thought of as the less-serious sister to white or red wine, making it the ideal beachside quaff in Saint Tropez.

8. Cape Codder, Massachusetts

When cranberry giant Ocean Spray began to promote its juice cocktail as a mixer, suggestions to pair it with Canadian whiskey or rum fell flat. But vodka and cranberry—named the Cape Codder in honor of the beloved Massachusetts peninsula where cranberries thrive—hit it big, spawning multiple variations, including the trendier martini hybrid, the cosmopolitan.

7. Limoncello, Southern Italy

When life gave farmers in southern Italy surplus lemons, they soaked the peels in grain alcohol and added sugar to make limoncello. The sweet-tart digestivo is traditionally sipped after dinner, but is gaining ground as a base for simple cocktails, such as splashed over ice with soda or tonic water, preferably enjoyed while taking in the stunning seaside vistas of the Amalfi Coast.

6.  Margarita, Mexico

Was it a Texas socialite in Acapulco who was looking for something to refresh her party guests on a hot afternoon or a bartender in Tijuana hoping to impress Rita Hayworth (née Margarita Cansino) with a drink in her honor? Regardless of who invented the margarita—the stories are legion—the tart blend of tequila, cointreau, and lime juice in a glass rimmed with salt has become synonymous with Mexico. It’s the top-selling tequila cocktail worldwide.

5.  Daiquiri, Cuba

Thanks to the prevalence of rum, lime, and sugar in the Caribbean, the trio became the base for many of the region’s cocktails (as well as the British sailor’s grog). Named for a beach near Santiago, Cuba, the first daiquiri was allegedly invented by a group of American engineers working in the area whose gin supplies had run dry. The drink today is more recognizable to Americans in its fruit-flavored frozen form.

4.  Red Stripe Beer, Jamaica

So identified is Red Stripe with the Jamaican national identity that when the island formally gained independence from Great Britain in 1962, one columnist suggested the real date should have been 1928, when the beer was first brewed on the island in Kingston. After a couple of marketing glitches in the U.S. market, the lager is now the most popular of all Caribbean beers.

3. Mai-Tai, Polynesia

Upon tasting this cocktail of rum, orange curaçao, orgeat syrup (made from almonds), and lime at Polynesian-style lounge Trader Vic’s (then called Hinky Dink) in Oakland, California, in 1944, a Tahitian guest remarked, “maita’i ro’a ‘ae,” meaning “out of this world.” Hence the name mai-tai, or so the story goes. The drink got a boost in Elvis’s hit movie Blue Hawaii and has since become a staple at tiki lounges everywhere.

2. Caipirinha, Brazil

Made with sugar, lime, and cachaça—a spirit fermented from sugarcane juice— the caipirinha is ubiquitous in Brazil’s seaside cafés. Even vendors on the beach mix them. Variations abound, the most popular is caipifrutas, which adds one or more of the region’s wide array of fruits, such as caju (cashew fruit), passionfruit, mango, or kiwi.

1. Piña Colada, Puerto Rico

The pineapple, coconut, and rum slurry known as piña colada had been popular in the Caribbean for at least a hundred years before Ramon “Monchito” Marrero, a bartender at the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar (now called Oasis Bar) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, perfected it in the 1950s using cream of coconut. Today, San Juan’s signature cocktail is sipped all over the world, but tastes best in Puerto Rico, by the beach or pool.

Source : National Geographic

In February-March 2010 by David Gillanders and broadcaster Rasmus Paulsen’s turned out a new opportunity to visit Ukraine and to assess the current situation. They spent 2 weeks in Odessa in the range of a small group of street children. David follows describes their lives:

In the south of Odessa on the street of Marshal Zhukov, a small group of 7 inhabited street in the basement of high-rise. To get to their shelter can only be through the vent, through which even the children have to squeeze through. They are connected to the electrical panels in the house that the basement could include a small lamp and use the electric stove. To keep warm, they are pressed against the pipeline, which runs hot water. All seven people infected with HIV every day take dru*s. They mix with the remedy for cough tablets and water to the state of the brown masses, and then filter it and get a yellowish liquid that and inject. To get a regular amount of money these kids steal, beg and collect scrap metal.

David and Rasmus provided by the European Court of viewers and listeners report on his visit in the form of photographic materials and radio programs. Because they were able to draw the attention of European funds to the problems of street children.In May, 2010 by David Gillanders, Rasmus Paulsen, won the “Fund to Fight AIDS” for their selfless work, which has helped thousands of Ukrainian children.For several years, David worked with homeless children, he knows the history of everyone who can be seen in his photographs.

]]> http://www.hossit.com/ukrainian-street-children/feed/ 12 http://www.hossit.com/top-10-soviet-cosmonauts/ http://www.hossit.com/top-10-soviet-cosmonauts/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:00:30 +0000 admin http://www.hossit.com/?p=1093 Strictly speaking the post is not about 10 best cosmonauts but about cosmonauts involved in the first 10 successful Soviet space flights. Starting from the seventh the flights were not more individual so you’ll find here more than 10 persons. Let’s start.

1. Yuri Gagarin

First flight of a man into the space at the height of 327 kilometers lasting in total 108 minutes that have changed his life and life of our planet.

2. Gherman Titov was Gagarin’s substitute for any unforeseen circumstances and afterwards was chosen to be the second Soviet man in space in 1961. He still holds a record – he was a youngest man ever been in space. At the moment of the flight he was 25.

3. Andriyan Nikolayev participated in the first joint flight of two space ships Vostok-3 and Vostok-4. For that time his flight was the longest – 94 hours and 25 minutes.

4. Pavel Popovich was the second cosmonaut of the mention first joint flight. He was the pilot of Vostok-4 and approached the partner space ship for 6 km.

5. Valeriy Bykovsky piloting Vostok-5 was one of the second joint flight’s pilots. He set up a new flight endurance record – 119 hours and 6 minutes. It remains for this day because there have never been longer solo flights.

6. Valentina Tereshkova was not just the first woman in space but she was the one who approached the partner space ship (Vostok 5) at 5 kilometer distance.

7. Vladimir Komarov

Konstantin Feoktistov

Boris Egorov They conducted the first group space flight at the newly constructed Voskhod spacecraft.

8. Pavel Belyayev

Alexey Leonov This was the first flight of two pilots and this was the flight when Leonov became the first human to conduct a space walk.

9. Georgiy Beregovoy piloted the first flight aimed at approaching to an unmanned spacecraft.

10. Vladimir Shatalov was the first Soviet cosmonaut who conducted three space flights and participated in the first docking of two manned spacecrafts.