U.S. calls for new nuclear weapons as Russia develops nuclear-armed torpedo

It sounds like the stuff from a Cold War novel: A Russian intercontinental nuclear-armed torpedo that can travel thousands of miles and strike U.S. coastal cities with minimal warning.

But that weapon isn’t just a work of fiction. It’s actually being developed in Russia, according to a new Defense Department report that assesses the arms advancements being made in other countries.

Such weapons research is a wake-up call for the U.S. to strengthen its own arsenal, the Defense Department’s Nuclear Posture Review said Friday. The report calls for the U.S. to develop two new additional nuclear weapons to keep other world powers at bay.

Master spy novelist John le Carré has thoughts on how Trump might fall

Master spy novelist John le Carré’s depictions of Cold War spy games carry such a strong whiff of inside knowledge that his books, to his obvious embarrassment, were considered essential reading by Russia’s KGB, and scrutinized by the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence. Despite predictions that the fall of the Berlin Wall and triumph of capitalism—“the end of history”—would also lead to his downfall as a novelist, the former British spy has kept writing. His latest and highly anticipated novel, A Legacy of Spies, is publishing this week.

Russians are fighting the war of words against the U.S. with American words

So much divides the United States and Russia right now, and the list seems to get longer every day: Ukraine, Iran, Syria, North Korea.

But there’s one way in which Russia and the United States are getting closer. It’s how Russian officials are waging a war of words. They’re using the language of American politics to do it.

G7 rejects UK call for sanctions against Russia and Syria

A call by the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for targeted sanctions against senior Russian and Syrian figures has been rejected by fellow G7 foreign ministers.

At a meeting at Lucca in Italy, the group said there must be an investigation into last week’s chemical weapons attack in a rebel-held town before new measures could be adopted.

Hugh Tovar, CIA Operative at the Center of Cold War Intrigues, Dies at 92

Indonesian soldiers take members of the youth wing of the country’s Communist Party to prison in Jakarta on October 30, 1965. They were rounded up by the army following a crackdown on Communists after an abortive coup against President Sukarno’s government earlier in the month. CIA officer Hugh Tovar was a high-ranking official stationed in Jakarta at the time. AP 

Hugh Tovar, who was at the center of two of the CIA’s most controversial covert action operations during the Cold War, died of natural causes just after midnight June 27. He was 92.

Tovar was the CIA station chief in Malaysia and Indonesia in the 1960s and then Laos and Thailand in the 1970s, while the U.S. and Soviet Union were locked in proxy wars around the world, most directly in Southeast Asia. For a time he was also chief of the CIA’s covert action and counterintelligence sections at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Tovar’s assignments put him on the cutting edge of CIA operations at the time, much like the today’s counterterrorism specialists, said Colin Thompson, a former CIA officer who served under Tovar in Thailand and later in the CIA’s counterintelligence branch.

“Hugh was one of a small group of senior East Asia officers…who were to the CIA in the ’60s and ’70s what the [agency’s] leaders in Middle East operations are today,” said Thompson, who also worked in Laos, where Tovar was station chief from 1970 to 1973, at the height of the CIA’s so-called “secret war” there.

The assignment to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, was a homecoming of sorts for Tovar, who had previously been sent there by the CIA’s World War II predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, after his ROTC class at Harvard was called to duty by the U.S. Army in 1943.

Born in Colombia as Bernardo Hugh Tovar—he rarely used his first name—he was raised in Chicago but attended Portsmouth Priory (now Portsmouth Abbey), a private school in Rhode Island run by Benedictine monks.

The CIA’s later covert campaign in Laos was the biggest and longest paramilitary operation in the agency’s history. It lasted from 1961 to 1975 and employed hundreds of CIA operatives and pilots and thousands of local Hmong tribesmen in a failed effort to block Communist North Vietnam from using Laos as a supply route and staging ground for attacks in South Vietnam.

But it was Tovar’s tenure in Indonesia in 1965 that has drawn the most scrutiny. At the time, the country’s president, Sukarno, was leading a global “anti-imperialist” movement with the support of the Soviet Union and Communist China.

Tovar, who had earlier worked against Communist guerrillas in the Philippines, was the CIA’s Jakarta station chief. In September 1965, a coup attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI, failed, and the military unleashed a genocidal campaign against the PKI’s mostly ethnic Chinese followers.

With the rebellion crushed and the military-backed Suharto regime now fully in power, the U.S. and other Western powers hailed the outcome as “the West’s best news for years in Asia,” as Time magazine put it.

“Hugh made his mark in Indonesia in the mid-’60s where he was COS [chief of station] during the very bloody anti-Chinese riots that led to the overthrow of Sukarno and the rise of Suharto,” Thompson told Newsweek. “I understand he and the station performed very well.”

Too well, according to a sensational 1990 account by States News Service journalist Kathy Kadane. She reported that the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta provided the Indonesian military with the names of suspected Communists, who were then hunted down and murdered.

“Over the next months, tens of thousands died—estimates range from the Suharto government report of 78,002 to an Amnesty International estimate of more than 1 million deaths,” intelligence historian John Prados wrote in his 2003 biography of William Colby, a colleague of Tovar’s who later became CIA director. An internal CIA report on the events in Indonesia, Prados wrote, called it “one of the worst episodes of mass murder of the 20th century.”

Responding to Kadane’s charges in The New York Times, Tovar denied he was involved in providing “any classified information” to an embassy political officer who in turn gave it to the Indonesians.

In a 2001 interview with the Indonesian magazine Tempo, he also denied CIA complicity in the resulting carnage. “The U.S. did not in any way help the Army suppress the Communists,” he said.

Tovar retired in 1978 but followed his second wife, Pamela Kay Balow, “on her assignments with the CIA to Rome, Singapore and Australia,” according to theannouncement of his death by the Galone-Caruso Funeral Home in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. He died “peacefully” at St. Anne Home, an assisted-living center in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the announcement said.

In his retirement, Tovar became a measured critic of U.S. efforts to overthrow foreign governments. In a 1982 book of essays on covert action, he was quoted as saying the CIA’s ill-fated 1961 invasion of Cuba was based on the mistaken notion that Fidel Castro’s support was “so shallowly rooted…that he could be shaken by psychological pressures, as [President Jacobo] Arbenz had been in Guatemala [in 1954], and then ousted by a comparative handful of troops.”

“Was it an intelligence failure?” Tovar said. “Undoubtedly, and in the grandest sense of the term.”

Likewise, in Vietnam in 1963, a U.S.-backed coup backfired by weakening the Saigon government, Tovar wrote in another essay. “The overthrow of President [Ngo Dinh] Diem constituted the opening of the floodgates of American involvement in Indochina,” he wrote.

“By intruding as it did—crassly and blind to the consequences—the burden of responsibility for winning or losing was removed once and for all from South Vietnamese shoulders, and placed upon America’s own.”

Tovar also cautioned CIA leaders about discussing covert action options with their underlings, “whose instincts and training guarantee an immediate can-do response.”

“Momentum develops rapidly,” he said in the collection of essays, titled Intelligence Requirements for the 1980’s: Covert Action. “Conceptualizing is superseded by planning. Policy emerges in high secrecy and, before anyone realizes it, the project is a living, pulsating, snorting entity with a dynamic all its own.”

Newsweek national security correspondent Jeff Stein served as a military intelligence case officer in South Vietnam during 1968-69.

Here’s A Map Of The Russia-NATO Confrontation

The war in eastern Ukraine is in a state of cease-fire, but if the past seven months are any indication, this halt in hostilities won’t spell the end of the most severe geopolitical crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

In the economic and diplomatic realm, Russia is attempting to choke off Ukraine’s supply of natural gas as the EU and the US ratchet up sanctions on Moscow.

And the fight continues on the battlefield, in spite of the cease-fire — seven Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a separatist attack on Monday, at the same time the Ukrainian army continued its shelling of rebel positions in Donetsk.

Yet eastern Ukraine is just one hotspot along a larger, continent-wide fault line. The border between Russia and NATO-allied Europe is dotted with pockets of instability including several separatist regions that Moscow and its allies support. The fact that Russia and the NATO states possess all but around 550 of the world’s estimated 17,100 nuclear weapons only raises the stakes.

This map depicts the larger confrontation between Russia and NATO and the possible return to Cold War power dynamics in Europe.

This chart shows all of the versions of Russia’s fifth-generation fighter jet

The US and Russia have been competing arms exporters since the dawn of the Cold War.

Although the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the deep-seated rivalry between the US and Russia never fully died out and is now stronger than it’s been in decades thanks the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine. The same goes for the countries’ rivalry in the realm of military hardware.

The US and Russia are both producing their own fifth-generation fighters. While the US is developing the F-35 in conjunction with select worldwide partners, Russia is developing its own fifth-generation fighter, the Su-50.

And like the F-35, the Su-50 will have multiple variants. The following chart from Russian arms manufacturer Sukhoi shows the intended plan for all versions of Russia’s most advanced fighter jet.

The base model of the Su-50 is also known under its prototype name of the T-50 PAKFA. There have been five T-50s built so far. The plane’s final version (the Su-50) is supposed to be fully operational by 2016.

Once complete, the Su-50 will serve as a base model for future fifth-generation aircraft. Some versions of the plane are intended for export, with the bulk of them being developed for India.

The Indian version of the plane, called the Su-50E, will be similar to the Su-50 but modified according to certain demands from the Indian Air Force. Russia and India are also co-developing the Su55-FGFA, a twin-seater version of the Su-50 that will be specially designed for the Indian Air Force.

This close level of coordination between Russia and India highlights the consistently close military relations the two countries have enjoyed. India is the world’s largest arms importer, and it received 75% of all of its armaments from Moscow in 2013.

Aside from India, Russia also plans to complete variants of the Su-50 for South Korea and Iran. The South Korean version, the Su-50EK, should be ready for export by 2018 while the Iranian Su-50ES version will be ready by 2022.

Crisis in Ukraine could trigger nuclear war, warns Gorbachev

The former Russian leader warns that Moscow does not trust the West, and the West does not trust Moscow

 

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, has warned that the world is at risk of a “nuclear war” because of the tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

In an interview with the German magazine Spiegel, Mr Gorbachev said that if either side lost its nerve in the current stand-off, it could lead to nuclear war, and spoke of his fears that the world “will not survive the next few years”.

“I actually see all the signs of a new Cold War,” Mr Gorbachev said. “It could all blow up at any moment if we don’t take action. The loss of confidence is catastrophic. Moscow does not believe the West, and the West does not believe Moscow.”

Asked if he thought the situation could lead to a war, Mr Gorbachev said: “Don’t even think of it. Such a war today would probably lead inevitably to nuclear war. But the statements and propaganda on both sides make me fear the worst. If anyone loses their nerve in this charged atmosphere, we will not survive the next few years.”

Such a stark warning from the former Soviet leader who brought about the end of the Cold War will raise concerns.

“I do not say such things lightly,” Mr Gorbachev said. “I am a man with a conscience. But that’s how it is. I’m really extremely worried.”

The 83-year-old has spoken out about the current stand-off between Russia and the West before. Last year he used a speech in Berlin on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall to warn: “The world is on the brink of a new Cold War”.

Mr Gorbachev has been critical of his successor, Vladimir Putin, accusing him in a recent book of overconfidence and believing himself to be “second only to God”.

But he has laid the blame for the current crisis with the West, for encroaching on what Russia sees as its spehere of influence.

“Nato’s eastward expansion has destroyed the European security order,” he told Spiegel. “A dangerous winning mentality has taken hold in

Secret FBI project trained Alaskans in preparation for Soviet invasion

Declassified documents reveal that in the 1950s the FBI trained Alaskan residents to become agents behind enemy lines if the Soviets invaded. No women, Eskimo, Indians or Aleuts were included, with native peoples considered unreliable.

The recently declassified FBI and Air Force documents show that in the early stage of the Cold War the US government feared that the Soviet Union was planning an intervention and occupation of Alaska.

The US military believed that the Soviet invasion would be airborne, with bombing preceding dropping of paratroopers to Alaska’s major inhabited localities, namely Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome and Seward.

To cope with the eventuality that there was no way to rebuff the invasion, in 1951 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover initiated a highly classified project, code-named “Washtub,” organizing a human intelligence network, recruiting and training citizens across Alaska to provide the American military with intelligence in case of war with Moscow.

Under the plan, “stay-behind agents” would hide in so-called survival caches – bunkers loaded with food, warm clothes, message-coding material and radios – and report on enemy movements.

The covert network consisted of fishermen, bush pilots, trappers and people of other professions. But there were restrictions – no one from the indigenous population was included.

“Eskimo, Indian and Aleut groups in the Territory should be avoided in view of their propensities to drink to excess and their fundamental indifference to constituted governments and political philosophies. It is pointed out that their prime concern is with survival and their allegiance would easily shift to any power in control,” insisted the founders of the program.

After being secretly screened by the FBI for disloyalty – at least some recruits were fingerprinted – the recruited citizens were offered up to $3,000 a year fees (equivalent to $30,000 in today’s money) which was supposed to double “after an invasion has commenced.”

However, it is not said in the records how much was actually paid to the recruits.

All participants underwent a range of specialized training such as the parachutes, “guerilla techniques and close fighting,” scouting, patrolling, methods of interview and interrogation, “Arctic survival,” and, also coding and decoding messages.

 

The latter did not always go well, as learning these techniques was “an almost impossible task for backwoodsmen to master in 15 hours of training,” one document said.

“Agents should be trained singly and their identities withheld from each other,” the declassified document reads.

The plan suggested organizing “cells” comprised of a principal, a group of agents the principal recruited, and sub-agents recruited by agents “who are not aware of the identity of the principal.”

A typical candidate to become a principal, OSI suggested, would be “a professional photographer in Anchorage” having only one arm and “it if felt that he would not benefit the enemy in any labor battalion.”“Reasonably intelligent, and particularly crafty,” he would also have amateur radio operator skills and be “licensed as a hunting or fishing guide, and [be] well versed in the art of survival.”

“Women will not be used in any operation contemplated by the proposed plan,” the document reads, giving no further explanations.

Being a recruit for the program was acknowledged as a potentially dangerous mission, since the Soviet military doctrine called for the destruction of local resistance in occupied lands.

To make up for the possible casualties, a reserve pool of agents was to be kept outside Alaska and brought in to the region by air.

The program was active from 1951 till 1959 and within that time the OSI trained 89 stay-behind agents, Deborah Kidwell, official historian of the body, wrote in the group’s magazine last year, AP reported. The survival caches served peacetime purposes for many years after the program was shut down.

Initiated by the FBI, the program was later led by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), becoming OSI’s “most extensive and long-running Cold War projects.” The FBI dubbed the project “STAGE”.

The reason why the FBI opted not to lead the project was that agency’s director, Hoover, worried that in case of an invasion of Alaska the FBI would be “left holding the bag.”

“If a crisis arose we would be in the midst of another ‘Pearl Harbor’ and get part of the blame,” Hoover wrote in the margin of a memo from his aide in September 1951, finally ordering: “Get out at once.”

Parallel to the agent program, the US also worked on training a group of civilian operatives in Alaska whose task would be to organize the evacuation of downed military air crews.

NATO summit to highlight unity against Russia

Rasmussen, right, warned Russian intervention in Ukraine is the most serious security threat since Cold War

Leaders of military alliance to meet with Ukraine president in UK, as NATO chief warns of biggest threat since Cold War.

NATO leaders are holding a summit in the UK in a bid to show unity against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, after France suspended delivery of a warship to Moscow despite a surprise peace plan put forward by the Kremlin.

Ukraine and the new threats posed by the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and beyond are expected to dominate the two-day summit that begins on Thursday in Newport in Wales.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned that Russian intervention in Ukraine is the most serious security threat since the Cold War, one which the 28 member-states ignore at their peril.

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to stand together in support of Ukraine against Russia in a joint statement in the Times newspaper on Thursday.

“Russia has ripped up the rulebook with its illegal, self-declared annexation of Crimea and its troops on Ukrainian soil threatening and undermining a sovereign nation state,” the two leaders wrote in an op-ed piece.

“We should support Ukraine’s right to determine its own democratic future and continue our efforts to enhance Ukrainian capabilities.”

To highlight support for Kiev, leaders will meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for a session of the NATO-Ukraine Council, set up after the country became an alliance partner in 1997, the AFP news agency reported.

The meeting will “send a clear signal of their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and that the onus is on Russia to de-escalate the situation,” a British government source said.

Al Jazeeera’s James Bays, reporting from Newport, said that the discussions will aim to develop a way to fund the enhanced support for Kiev.

“The US is certainly pushing its other NATO partners to increase their defence budgets,” he added.

Peace plan

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday pre-empted the NATO summit, unveiling a seven-point Ukraine peace plan to produce a ceasefire on Friday, the day when the European Union is expected to announce additional tough economic sanctions against Moscow.

Putin appealed for both sides to lay down their weapons after nearly five months of fighting that has killed 2,600 people and been blamed by both Kiev and its Western allies on Putin’s attempts to seize back former Soviet and Tsarist lands.

However, Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk swiftly rejected Putin’s plan as just the latest “attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community”.

The rebels may also take some convincing to lay down their weapons after scoring a resounding string of successes with the alleged support of Russian soldiers that has seen Ukrainian forces lose effective control over most of the separatist east.

Against this troubled backdrop, the summit centre-piece will be approval of a new NATO rapid reaction force comprising “several thousand troops” that can be deployed within “very few days” to meet any new threats, Rasmussen said.

The 10 Largest Air-To-Air Battles In Military History [INFOGRAPHIC]

Air-to-air combat was a staple of modern war almost as soon as the technology for aerial warfare became practical. From the early 20th century through the end of the Cold War, air battles were determining factors in military campaigns.

Today, air superiority allows the United States to engage in conflicts around the world relatively free of the risks inherent in ground warfare — as is currently being demonstrated in the U.S.’s bombing of ISIS targets in Iraq.

There was an earlier era in warfare when aerial combat wasn’t quite so seemless. During the 20th century, when powerful conventional militaries frequently fought wars against each other and before U.S. air power became essentially uncontested, air-to-air battles could last days and involve thousands of aircraft. These battles often played a decisive factor in the outcome of the wars they were a part of.  

The University of Norwich has released the following infographic documenting the largest and longest air battles in history. Most of them are from the first half of the 20th century, and were fought on an immense and even baffling scale.

Today, most wars are fought within countries, or between militia groups or other irregular forces that don’t have an aerial component to them. This chart is proof of how different things were even a few decades ago, when the sky itself was hotly contested territory.

Why Russia No Longer Fears the West

The West is blinking in disbelief – Vladimir Putin just invaded Ukraine. German diplomats, French Eurocrats and American pundits are all stunned. Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties with the West?

Western leaders are stunned because they haven’t realized Russia’s owners no longer respect Europeans the way they once did after the Cold War. Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.

Putin’s henchmen know this personally. Russia’s rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London’s West End to France’s Cote d’Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.

Putin’s inner circle no longer fear the European establishment. They once imagined them all in MI6. Now they know better. They have seen firsthand how obsequious Western aristocrats and corporate tycoons suddenly turn when their billions come into play. They now view them as hypocrites—the same European elites who help them hide their fortunes.

Once Russia’s powerful listened when European embassies issued statements denouncing the baroque corruption of Russian state companies. But no more. Because they know full well it is European bankers, businessmen and lawyers who do the dirty work for them placing the proceeds of corruption in hideouts from the Dutch Antilles to the British Virgin Islands.

We are not talking big money. But very big money. None other than Putin’s Central Bank has estimated that two thirds of the $56 billion exiting Russia in 2012 might be traceable to illegal activities. Crimes like kickbacks, drug money or tax fraud. This is the money that posh English bankers are rolling out the red carpet for in London.

Behind European corruption, Russia sees American weakness. The Kremlin does not believe European countries – with the exception of Germany – are truly independent of the United States. They see them as client states that Washington could force now, as it once did in the Cold War, not to do such business with the Kremlin.

When Russia sees Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal outbidding each other to be Russia’s best business partner inside the EU (in return for no mention of human rights), they see America’s control over Europe slowly dissolving.

Back in Moscow, Russia’s hears American weakness out of Embassy Moscow. Once upon a time the Kremlin feared a foreign adventure might trigger Cold War economic sanctions where it hurts: export bans on key parts for its oil industry, even being cut out of its access to the Western banking sector. No more.

Russia sees an America distracted: Putin’s Ukrainian gambit was a shock to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. They prefer talking about China, or participating in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Russia sees an America vulnerable: in Afghanistan, in Syria and on Iran—a United States that desperately needs Russian support to continue shipping its supplies, host any peace conference or enforce its sanctions.

Moscow is not nervous. Russia’s elites have exposed themselves in a gigantic manner – everything they hold dear is now locked up in European properties and bank accounts. Theoretically, this makes them vulnerable. The EU could, with a sudden rush of money-laundering investigations and visa bans, cut them off from their wealth. But, time and time again, they have watched European governments balk at passing anything remotely similar to the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bars a handful of criminal-officials from entering the United States.

All this has made Putin confident, very confident – confident that European elites are more concerned about making money than standing up to him. The evidence is there. After Russia’s strike force reached the outskirts of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, in 2008, there were statements and bluster, but not a squeak about Russia’s billions. After Russia’s opposition were thrown into show trials, there were concerned letters from the European Union, but again silence about Russia’s billions.

The Kremlin thinks it knows Europe’s dirty secret now. The Kremlin thinks it has the European establishment down to a tee. The grim men who run Putin’s Russia see them like latter-day Soviet politicians. Back in the 1980s, the USSR talked about international Marxism but no longer believed it. Brussels today, Russia believes, talks about human rights but no longer believes in it. Europe is really run by an elite with the morality of the hedge fund: Make money at all costs and move it offshore.

The Mysteries and Tragedy of Russia’s Bottomless Karst Lake (PHOTOS)

The water is serene but deathly cold – and danger lurks beneath its surface. Yet, in the aquatic depths the promise of discovering hidden underwater caves and relics of our past awaits. Here, beauty and allure belie risks – but risks that some are prepared to take.

“A sapphire in a ring of green trees.” That’s how this stunning lake has been described. Even on overcast days, the water has a deep, crystal blue color like the gemstone to which it has been compared.

But there is much more than splendor to this lake. Beneath its smooth surface lie mysteries as yet unsolved. And some of these are secrets that the lake will not easily give up; at least, not if the recent tragic death of one diving explorer and the hospitalization of another are read as telltale signs.

9 Magical Zen Gardens

Zen garden is an interesting and deeply spiritual aspect of Japanese gardening traditions. The typical Zen garden consists of an enclosed and shallow sand box of sorts which features predominantly sand or gravel with rocks of various shapes and sizes.

The rocks and sand (or gravel) are the chief elements of the garden, which generally creates the scene of islands in the sea. The sand or gravel in a Zen garden represents the sea or ocean and is used instead of water. It will be carefully raked by tending monks to create the impression of waves on the surface of a body of water.

The rocks themselves represent islands or rock formations jutting out from the water. The overall goal is to create a small-scale recreation of an aerial or cliff-top view of an intricate coastal scene. One of the primary differences between a Zen garden and most other varieties is the lack of living elements. Although grass may sometimes be included, no other plant or flower species will be found in a classic Zen garden.

This can be both unusual and exotically appealing to people with no past experience with the history and meaning of a Zen garden.

The world’s most extraordinary hotels in pictures

Mihir Garh, Rajasthan 
“The fort sits in splendid isolation amid the Thar Desert near Jodhpur. It looks like an enormous sandcastle, a mirage, and is not just a unique place to stay; it’s a shrine to the artistic and architectural traditions of Rajasthan in general and Jodhpur in particular.”

Planet Baobab, Botswana
“Botswana’s Makgadigadi Pan comprises the world’s largest network of salt pans – a thirsty, mirage-inducing landscape of flat, shimmering expanses under hard blue skies. Halfway along the sole tarred road through this arid moonscape, a statue of an anteater towers at the dusty verge. It is a surreal sight, and an appropriate signpost for the distinctive Planet Baobab.”

Prendiparte B&B, Bologna, Italy
“A medieval high-rise turned romantic hideaway, the Torre Prendiparte is unlike anywhere else you’ll ever stay. The living area is on the first two floors and comprises a snug, classically-furnished living room, mezzanine bedroom, and kitchen. Above this is the former jail where you can still see graffiti left by prisoners on the 2m-thick walls.”

Qasr al Sarab, UAE
“Rising from the shifting sands, Qasr Al Sarab appears like a mirage on the edge of the vast Empty Quarter desert. Outside high crenellated walls echo fortresses of old. Inside rooms continue the dream of Arabian Nights with sumptuous fabrics, carved Islamic designs, woven rugs, wooden doors and metalwork lanterns.”

Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tasmania, Australia
“A stay at Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge plunges you into the heart of Tasmania’s wilderness, with luxury that feels as organic as your surrounds. The cabins are nestled privately in the bushland, with wallabies bounding past the windows and wombats shuffling amid the trees.”

Free Spirit Spheres, British Columbia, Canada
“Suspended in the trees on sturdy guide ropes, Vancouver Island’s Free Spirit Spheres look like giant eyeballs peering deep into the British Columbia woodlands. Step inside and the handmade orbs – accessed via spiral rope staircases or slender steel bridges – are lined like comfy boat cabins with built-in beds and cabinets.”

Taskonak Hotel, Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey
“Göreme has dozens of beautiful cave-hotels but Taşkonak manages to dish up the cave-suites and stupendous views Cappadocia is famous for without breaking your budget.”

Thonga Beach Lodge, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa
“One of few such lodges within the extraordinary 328,000 hectare iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a Unesco world heritage site.”

Saugerties Lighthouse, New York state, USA
“Saugerties Lighthouse is a historic 1869 landmark that makes a wonderful base for exploring the scenic Hudson valley. It is 100 miles north of New York City, and the red brick building has played a pivotal role in safely guiding steamboats, barges and other vessels safely along the Hudson river over the years. More recently (in the mid 1990s), the lighthouse was transformed into a two-room B&B, providing safe haven of a different sort.”

The Gibbon Experience Treehouse, Bokeo Reserve, Laos
“The tree houses erected by conservation group Animo are a thing of architectural wonder, straddling the giant trunks of strangler fig trees. But more extraordinary still is that to reach these vertiginous eyries you’ll have to trek through the fecund realm of the tiger, then catch a series of exhilarating zip lines strung across the forest canopy, before flying into your night’s accommodation.”

Amazing color pictures from 1960s Budapest

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National Geographic Photo Contest

 

 

 

 

100 years old pictures in colours before World War I

Türkei, Bursa, Ladengeschaeft einer Confiserie, Auguste Leon, 1. Juni 1913

Vietnam. Tonkin, Leon Busy, 1914

Indien, Statue des Heiligen Stiers, Stephane Passet, 29. Januar 1914

Österreich, Wien, Judengasse, Fotograf unbekannt, 23. April 1913

Mongolei, nahe Ulaanbaatar Urga, Stéphane Passet, 23. Juli 1913

Irland, Galway, Marguerite Mespoulet, 26. Mai 1913

Indien, Uttar Pradesh, Agra. Mausoleum Taj Mahal von Shah Jahan für Mumtaz Mahal, Stéphane Passet, 19.-21. Januar 1914

Indien, Amritsar. Marmorne Strasse zum Goldenden Tempel, neben den rituellen Reinigungsbecken, dem Darbar Sahib und dem Hari Mandir, Stéphane Passet, 15. Januar 1914

China, nach Kalgan. Nomadenlager, drei Männer und ein Junge vor einer Jurte, Stéphane Passet, 18.-21. Juli 1912

Water pipe smoking. Samarkand

Mongolei, Ulaanbaatar. Der Finanzminister des unabhängigen Staats Mongolei auf dem Marktplatz, Stéphane Passet, 22. Juli 1913

Major Lazer & DJ Snake – Lean On (feat. MØ)

Listen To A Rare 1965 Recording Of Stanley Kubrick’s Most Profound Interview

When physicist and renowned author Jeremy Bernstein (born December 31, 1929) penned a terrific piece on 37-year-old burgeoning director Stanley Kubrick for The New Yorker, the story gained so much attention that Bernstein was commissioned to write an even more elaborate profile of the legendary filmmaker. Normally Kubrick would have flat-out refused, however, he agreed due to the fact that he shared a common passion with Bernstein — chess. When Bernstein travelled to Oxford, England for the conversation on November 27, 1965 it was also captured on tape. The interview remains to this day one of the most profound conversations with Kubrick ever recorded, and you can listen to it in full below.

Helios – Hope Valley Hill (Arms and Sleepers Remix)

Keith Kenniff – Helios

Mac DeMarco // “Brother” (OFFICIAL SINGLE)

 

Alan Watts: Sense of Nonsense

November 27, 1965: A Rare Recording of Stanley Kubrick’s Most Revealing Interview

“People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction.”

George Orwell on how to make the perfect cup of tea

Excerpt from Orwell’s fantastic 1946 essay outlining his 11 “golden” rules of tea /

Harald Grosskopf’s 1979 Masterpiece “Synthesist” Is 7 Minutes Of Pure Amazingness

Yesterday TEEN DAZE released a new mixtape which you can stream and download by visiting ThePlayground.co.uk.  The 8-track collection provides a perfect ambient backdrop for pretty much any situation, but the crown jewel of the mixtape is unquestionably Harald Grosskopf’s brilliant track “Synthesist”.

Shanghai Tower (650 meters)

Raskalov and Russian photographer Vadim Mahora broke into and climbed the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower, soon to be China’s tallest and the world’s second tallest skyscraper at 632 meters (2,074 feet) high. Although the tower will eventually boast the world’s fastest elevators (reaching 40mph), the pair had to climb the 120 flights of stairs by foot (taking them about two hours); they then spent another 18 hours sleeping and waiting for the weather to clear. The staggering resulting images show not just the dizzying heights, but also fantastic views of the adjacent Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center (together, the trio of buildings that are re-defining the Shanghai skyline).

Adam Magyar – Stainless, 42 Street (excerpt)

High speed video recording in NYC at Grand Central station.

Tolkien & Sendak On The Psychology Of Fantasy & The Powerful Effect Of Fairy Tales On The Adult Mind

In March 1939, renowned fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien penned an essay enitled “On Fairy-Stories” which explores the nature of fantasy and the cultural role of fairy tales. His argument is the same — that there is no such thing as “writing for children.” Tolkien writes: “A ‘fairy-story’ is one which touches on or uses Faerie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventure, morality, fantasy. Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic — but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician. There is one proviso : if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away.”

Tolkien adds: “Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else … may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds.” You can read more excerpts from Tolkien’s essay by visiting BrainPickings.org.

The Aqualibrium Garden – The Future of Food

The Aqualibrium Garden – The Future of Food by “Aqualibrium”

The fish in the self-cleaning aquarium in the bottom chamber of the Aqualibrium Garden provide the nutrients that feed the plants in the self-watering grow space in the upper chamber. This cycle… like nature herself… is automatic, providing the potential to grow an abundance of fresh vegetables, herbs and flowering plants all year.

The Real Walter White (VIDEO)

When AMC’s Breaking Bad premiered in 2008, one of Alabama’s most successful meth cooks was already knee deep in building a massive meth empire. His name? Walter White. In this documentary, Walter tells us the secret behind his product, how he stacked up thousands of dollars per day, and why his partner is now serving two life sentences.

A new industry born from the disaster — LED indoor farm

A new industry born from the disaster — LED indoor farm

Awesome pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope

 

 

 

 

Great Gardens: “Prospect Cottage” by Howard Sooley – NOWNESS

http://vimeo.com/103807651

Great Gardens: “Prospect Cottage” by Howard Sooley – NOWNESS

Speeding Around The World in Under 5 minutes Time Lapse

17 Countries. 343 Days. 6237 Photographs. One incredible journey.

GoPro: Wild Downhill Ride with Claudio Caluori

Claudio Calouri and Will Longden takes us on a wild run through the UCI Downhill Course at Leogang in Austria.

World’s smallest cat – Big Cats

森の木琴

TOUCHWOOD SH-08C http://answer.nttdocomo.co.jp/touchwood/

“TRUMP ANTHEM” — A Bad Lip Reading of Donald Trump

Snow falls in the Sahara desert

The town of Ain Sefra, on the edge of the Sahara desert, was hit by icy weather last week – and even snow.

Snowfall is very rare in the Sahara, despite the fact that it can be cold at night – because there’s rarely enough water around for any kind of precipitation.

Unbelievable Unlikely Animal Friendships Compilation 2017

Winds on this mountain in the US will make it feel like -67C

Temperatures on a mountain peak in the US state of New Hampshire could fall so low you risk getting frostbite in just a couple of minutes.

Micro Wind Turbine

Oxmo Puccino – 365 Jours

The Future Of Transportation

The World in 2050