Guide Alba Poarta lui Carol Cetatea Alba Carolina

Guide Alba Poarta lui Carol Cetatea Alba Carolina

Watch “5 PRESIDENTS WHO SHAMED THEMSELVES ON CAMERA” on YouTube

Bagels saler in front of (now demolished) Unirii Market Bucharest – 1930’s Photographer : Iosif Berman

Bagels saler in front of (now demolished) Unirii Market
Bucharest – 1930’s
Photographer : Iosif Berman

Vanzator de covrigi anii 30′
Bucuresti, Hala Mare (Piata Unirii)
Fotograf: Iosif Berman

A Native American girl. 1904. St. Louis, Missouri. Photo by Charles H. Carpenter. Source – National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

A Native American girl. 1904. St. Louis, Missouri. Photo by Charles H. Carpenter. Source – National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

” The Madonna of Bruges ” 1501- 1504 Artist : Michelangelo Period : Haute Renaissance Location: Church of our lady , Bruges , Belgium

” The Madonna of Bruges ” 1501- 1504
Artist : Michelangelo
Period : Haute Renaissance
Location: Church of our lady , Bruges , Belgium

Chief Blackhorn (Tahe Sapa/Hah-Sah-Pah/Black Horn). Sicangu Lakota.

Chief Blackhorn (Tahe Sapa/Hah-Sah-Pah/Black Horn). Sicangu Lakota.
Part of the delegation to Washington, DC in 1872. Photo by Alexander Gardner.

Lucy Hale: Aquarelle 2

Lucy Hale: Aquarelle 2

Cappella Sistina

Cappella Sistina

France 24 : Twin blasts kill dozens near Afghan parliament

Twin blasts kill dozens near Afghan parliament

http://f24.my/2jyWMWx
Twin Taliban blasts struck near the Afghan parliament in Kabul Tuesday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 80 in a rush-hour attack that shattered a relative lull in violence in the capital.

The bombings came just hours after a Taliban suicide bomber killed seven people in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the volatile southern province of Helmand, as the militants ramp up attacks.
The blasts in Kabul tore through employees exiting a parliament annexe, which houses the offices of lawmakers, leaving the area littered with bloodied bodies.
“A suicide bomber on foot caused the first explosion, leaving a number of innocent workers killed and wounded,” Zabi, an injured parliament security guard, told AFP.
“The second one was a car bomb. The vehicle was parked on the other side of the road and flung me back when it detonated,” he said.
The blasts left 30 people dead and 80 wounded, some of them in serious condition, health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh told AFP, warning that the toll was expected to rise.
The dead included at least four policemen who were killed in the second explosion when they rushed to help the victims of the first blast, a security official told AFP.
The carnage underscores growing insecurity in Afghanistan, where around 10,000 US troops are helping struggling Afghan forces to combat a resilient Taliban insurgency as well as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said they were behind the Kabul explosions, adding the victims were mostly Afghan intelligence agents. The insurgents are known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
The parliament complex has been a prime target for insurgents. In June 2015 Taliban militants attacked the old parliament building, sending lawmakers running for cover in chaotic scenes relayed live on television.
That incident ended two hours later when all seven attackers, including a suicide car bomber, were gunned down by Afghan forces.
The Taliban are pressing ahead with nationwide attacks despite the onset of winter, when fighting usually ebbs, as international efforts to jumpstart peace talks falter.
Repeated bids to launch peace negotiations with the Taliban have failed and a fierce new fighting season is expected to kick off in the spring.
Afghanistan last week welcomed the Pentagon’s decision to deploy some 300 US Marines to Helmand, where American forces engaged in heated combat until their mission ended in 2014.
The Marines will head to the poppy-growing province this spring to assist a NATO-led mission to train Afghan forces, in the latest sign that foreign forces are increasingly being drawn back into the worsening conflict.
The situation in Afghanistan will be an urgent matter for the new US president, even though America’s longest war got scarcely a passing mention in the bitterly contested presidential election.
President-elect Donald Trump has given few details on his expected foreign policy, with even fewer specifics on how he will tackle the war in Afghanistan.
(AFP)

France 24 : Swiss Muslim girls must learn to swim with boys, court rules

Swiss Muslim girls must learn to swim with boys, court rules.

http://f24.my/2jpMBzn

Muslim parents in Switzerland cannot refuse to send their daughters to mixed school-run swimming lessons, Europe’s rights top court ruled Tuesday, responding to a challenge by a Turkish-Swiss couple who argued the classes violated their beliefs.

The European Court of Human Rights accepted that the refusal by authorities to exempt girls from the lessons interfered with their freedom of religion.
But the interference, it said, was justified by the need to protect the children from social exclusion.
School plays “a special role in the process of social integration, particularly where children of foreign origin were concerned,” ruled the court, which is based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
Swimming lessons are “not just to learn to swim, but above all to take part in that activity with all the other pupils”, it added.
The case was brought by a Turkish-Swiss couple who argued that forcing their pre-pubescent daughters to attend the classes violated their faith.
The court found that the Basel authorities had tried to accommodate the parents’ beliefs by, for instance, allowing the girls to wear the full-body “burkini” swimsuit.
The court also said that the fine of 1,400 Swiss francs (around 1,300 euros) imposed on the couple in 2010 after a warning was “proportionate to the aim pursued” of getting them to comply with the regulation.
The case was brought by Aziz Osmanoglu and his partner Sehabat Kocabas, whose daughters were born in 1999 and 2001.
All their appeals were rejected by Swiss courts, after which they took their case to Strasbourg.
Tuesday’s ruling is not final. The couple has three months to appeal the decision.
(AFP)

Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer. Museo del Prado

Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer. Museo del Prado

Bobtailhorse. Blackfoot. 1913. Photo by Roland Reed

Bobtailhorse. Blackfoot. 1913. Photo by Roland Reed

Cheyenne boy. 1878. Photo by L.A. Huffman.

Cheyenne boy. 1878. Photo by L.A. Huffman.

Bird Chief. Arapaho. 1867. Photo by William S. Stinson. Source – National Anthropological Archives.

Bird Chief. Arapaho. 1867. Photo by William S. Stinson. Source – National Anthropological Archives.