When Germany was divided during the cold war, nature took control of the deserted border area. Today it forms a reserve as fascinating as the country's recent history

When I told friends I was setting off to explore the former border that once separated East and West Germany, several of them, even the German ones, scratched their heads and dug out their maps to find out where it ran. Unlike the Berlin Wall, the infamous symbol of the cold war that separated West Berlin from East, the much longer border that ran through the heart of Germany, has been largely forgotten.

German nature lovers, however, are well aware of the scar left by the iron curtain, once one of the world's most heavily fortified borders. For four decades up to the end of the cold war in 1989, around 600 threatened species of animal and plant life were given a free rein in a no man's land overshadowed by minefields, metal fences and watchtowers. The legacy is a unique and extraordinarily rich chain of ad hoc nature reserves running for nearly 1,400km in a gentle zigzag from the Vogtland region, near the German-Czech border in the south, to the Baltic Sea in the north, now interlinked to form a grünes band, or green belt.

It is an impressive living monument to recent European history that is accessible to walkers and bikers. Eckhard Selz, a ranger and former East German from the Harz national park, summed it up over a bowl of pea and sausage soup atop the Brocken peak, one of the highlights of the route: "The division of Germany was a travesty that robbed people of their freedom, but a positive side effect was the way the sealed border allowed nature to flourish."

It has created a treasure trove of wildlife, including black storks, wild cats and winchats, a range of rare mosses and wood grouse. The newcomer is the lynx, which has been successfully reintroduced to the region since the border came down.

In four days we hiked around 100km of the green belt, starting at the Torfhaus visitor centre in the Harz national park, just outside the picturesque former mining town of Goslar. It was organised for us by the Harz tourist board and the Green Belt initiative, who will arrange guides, luggage transfers, routes and accommodation, allowing you the freedom to concentrate on the surroundings. Alternatively you can do the hikes alone. The paths are well marked and the local tourist offices on the route are stocked with plenty of maps and information about activities.

In Torfhaus, our guide, biologist Jens Halves, offered everything from reflexology foot massages in the park's cool mountain streams to tours that trace the past journeys of Hans-Christian Andersen and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to reconstructing the lives of the 18th- and 19th-century charcoal burners who lived in the forest and served the steel industry.

In Goslar - home to the delicious Gose beer that is brewed with a high concentration of malt and the region's soft and mineral-rich water - we stayed at the Kaiserworth Hotel, once a 15th-century cloth traders' guild house. The following day our rucksacks were picked up by a luggage taxi for delivery to our next destination while we set off on foot to the charming town of Hornburg. A room in the local museum details the West German town's precarious proximity to the iron curtain, including a model of the automatic spring guns that the East German authorities installed at the border. Triggered by movement, they sprayed would-be escapees with bullets.

"It was like living at the edge of the world," said Hinrich Schüler, our guide, who worked as a forester on the border and recalls the day in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. He and his colleagues had to act rapidly, cutting paths through the forest and laying temporary roads for the thousands of Trabants and pedestrians rushing from East to West. Now the towering 69-year-old was accompanying us on a brisk walk through a forest in Lower Saxony into the 1,030-year-old village of Osterwieck in the former East.

Osterwieck has received millions of euros in grants over the last 20 years to help restore its stunning collection of 400 half-timbered houses. But much of the former East is revealed in the many abandoned homes of the thousands who have been forced to leave because of lack of work.

In Ilsenburg we spent the night in a former East German army barracks, now the swish Berghotel, from where we trekked in drizzle through the pine and rock landscape of the Brocken along the distinct border patrol path, constructed out of perforated slab concrete, that runs like a seam for practically the entire length of the former border.

"The Brocken is to the Germans what Ben Nevis is to the Scots," explained Friedhart Knolle, a national park geologist.

The 1,141m mount was also a favourite haunt for British tourists as far back as the 1830s, when they were lured by the promise of the Brockengespenst - the Brocken spectre - an illusion formed, it is believed, by the thick fog and the shadows of climbers cast upon it. The seminal role it played in the history of broadcasting, when the 1936 Olympics were transmitted from the world's first television tower here, is explained in a museum at the summit.

The GDR authorities turned it into a military zone, out of bounds for all Germans, so today it is one of the most potent symbols of German partition and reunification.

A 19th-century narrow-gauge steam railway, the Brockenbahn, took us downhill to the pretty town of Schiercke (in the former East), close to our next destination, the town of Braunlage (former West). At the foot of Wurmberg mountain there, slalom skiers were once instructed to concentrate on curbing the end of their runs lest they ended up cruising into the forbidden East.

Hartmut Dörge, a former customs officer on the West German border who now gives tours of the area around Braunlage, pointed out the gaps in the heavily-fortified fences where foxes, rabbits and badgers were able to tunnel their way through.

Our walk took us past a brook, just 1m wide, that was pedantically split down the middle by the international border, a house in the forest where secret agents once met and a former East German army barracks turned asylum seekers' home.

Dorge gave me a piece of the metal mesh border fence as a souvenir before handing us over in the pretty town of Hohegeiss to our next guide, his former colleague Manfred Gille. He led us on a steep path through a spectacular pine forest that was so thick and dark it would have been the ideal setting for a Grimm fairytale. In a clearing near the East German village of Sorge, he pointed out how the tilling of the earth in search of landmines inadvertently churned up seeds and helped a wealth of birch and pine saplings to take root all along the former border. There are still bare patches, however, where industrial weed-killer sprayed by GDR authorities to ensure unbroken views of their borders, have killed all the nutrients.

Gille recalled a bizarre encounter he had with a Westerner who fled to the East, saying he was sick of the capitalist system: "He clung to the fence, rattling on it and crying 'Let me in!' while ignoring our suggestions that he should think twice about what he was doing."

At the Ring of Memory near the village of Sorge (which, fittingly, means "woe" in German), landscape artist Hermann Prigann's sculpture of naked concrete pillars encircled with charred wood piles celebrates how the forest has enveloped the former border area.

We met Inge Winkel, the mayor of the 120-soul village, who admitted she still stuck to the border patrol path for fear of stepping on an undiscovered landmine if she strayed into the forest. She stood at the fence marking the first of the two metal fortifications that once separated Sorge from the West and dwelt on a detail that has haunted her for years. "It's the highest quality steel, especially chosen by a regime that needed to keep its citizens locked in, otherwise they'd have run away," she said.

We ended our four-day journey in Eichsfeld, a Catholic enclave that is famous for successfully defying the regime, and rested our weary limbs on a bench at the former border - a gift to the green belt initiative from none other than the man who had initiated the monumental changes, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Getting there

Air Berlin (0871 5000 737, airberlin.com) flies Stansted-Hanover and Stansted-Berlin from £48 rtn inc tax.

Border trail

German tour operator Wandern im Harz (0049 5322 559603, wandern-im-harz.de) arranges hikes along the border trail from April to November. Hikes last four to six nights; the four-night tour costs €230pp, including hotel accommodation, transfers to and from the nearest railway station, breakfast, packed lunch, introductory talk, map, information material, luggage transfers and SOS assistance, but no guide.

Further information

Harz Mountains Tourist Board: +5321 34040, harzinfo.de. For details of the wider route across Europe: greenbelteurope.eu.

• Germany
• Walking holidays
• Wildlife holidays
• Wildlife
• Short breaks
• Europe

A new torrent has been uploaded to U2Torrents.com.

Torrent: 4809
Title: 2005-06-14 Manchester (D8 DAT AIWA MIC) A Light 1st Night
Size: 778.00 MB
Category: Vertigo
Uploaded by: Akhenaten

Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Light First Night In Manchester

Name: A Light First Night In Manchester
Tour: Vertigo Tour
Leg: Leg 2 - Europe
Date: 14.06.2005
Country: England
Town: Manchester
Place: City Of Manchester Stadium
Type: Audio
Support: CD-R
Equipment:Sony D8 dat recorder with a AIWA stereo condenser microphone
Performance: Live
Source: Audience
Integral: Complete


Setlist :

Disc 1
1. Introduction
2. Vertigo
3. I Will Follow
4. Electric Co.
5. Elevation
6. New Year's Day
7. Beautiful Day
8. City Of Blinding Lights
9. Miracle Drug
10. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
11. Love And Peace Or Else
12. Sunday Bloody Sunday
13. Bullet The Blue Sky
14. Running To Stand Still
15. Human Rights Declaration
16. Pride (in The Name Of Love)

Disc 2
1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. One
3. Crowd
4. Zoo Station
5. The Fly
6. Mysterious Ways
7. With Or Without You
8. Crowd
9. All Because Of You
10. Yahweh
11. Vertigo

This was my first ever live U2 show, and what a show it was. I got this the day after the concert from here I think (searched for it but it's not listed anymore, so perhaps i got it from Dime or traders den).

Anyhoo, this is a pretty good audience recording. The first 12 tracks are a bit distant and the crowd noise is a bit intrusive, but enjoyable non the less. From RTSS the story is a lot better. I suspect the taper moved positions or perhaps the amps went up to 11 because from here on it's a much better experience. The band are a lot louder and the crowd a bit less intrusive (just the right mix if you ask me).

Just listening back to it, it's a shame the taper wasn't in the latter position throughout the whole show, but it still IMO it feels like whole thing is building to a climax. Some great crowd interaction towards the end and some quality Joy Division snippets on WOWY.

Overall a decent recording. Starts off tinny and distant, but improves greatly 12 tracks in. For me a great record of a great gig and my introduction to U2 live.

I have lost the original info file, and compiled the data from www.achtungbootlegs.com

Front cover artwork is included.

Sadly i lost several hundred gigs worth or boots & artwork etc with a HDD crash, so I am unable to include the full artwork and the proper credits for the taper, but all credit go's to the taper and those who
shared it in the first place, RESPECT!.

I've searched through the active and dead torrents so I dont think this qualifies as a reseed because i couldn't find it, nor is it on the banned list. Although like death & taxes, I expect to be corrected in short order if I've overlooked anything.

thanks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use the URL below to download the torrent (you may have to login).

http://u2torrents.com/torrents-details.php?id=4809&hit=1

Take care!

U2Torrents.com

On en avait déjà l'habite à l'époque d'Infogrames et c'est toujours pareil avec Atari, l'éditeur est dans une mouise financière permanente. Ayant probablement claqué ses derniers deniers dans le rachat de Cryptic Studios, la firme avait déjà fait preuve d'absence lors de l'E3, a vendu sa division e...

Unions attack supermarket over treatment of agency workers in UK meat factories and labour relations at US Fresh & Easy chain

Tesco came under fire from union leaders on both sides of the Atlantic today in bad-tempered exchanges at its annual general meeting in Glasgow.

Unite, Britain's biggest union, and the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) of America used the meeting to attack the retailer over labour standards within its supply chain and stores. The UFCW went as far as to accuse Tesco of union-busting tactics, a charge the company hotly denied.

Unite's deputy general secretary, Jack Dromey, urged shareholders to support a resolution demanding better conditions for agency workers in meat factories that supply Tesco. Dromey said there was disturbing evidence of discrimination within the meat processing industry, and said Tesco was the "biggest and slowest" in addressing it.

As market leader, they had a duty to lead on this issue to avoid creating a division within society that could fuel racism, Dromey said.

Unite had claimed that the temporary workers, often from overseas, were paid less and treated worse than permanent staff, who were typically indigenous. But the union's resolution was voted down, with just 11% of votes in favour, after Britain's biggest supermarket argued that this is an industry issue not a Tesco one.

"It is important to reiterate this is not a question of labour relations within Tesco," said the chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy. "You have to accept that when we're talking about workers in other privately owned companies we've crossed a boundary."

UFCW director Michael Bride attacked Tesco over the way it entered the US market with its Fresh & Easy chain.

"Fresh & Easy has refused to engage with our team," said Bride, claiming that attempts to unionise staff at the stores had been blocked.

But Leahy hit back at this charge, saying: "Your union accused us of bad labour practices and tried to destroy our business before we'd even opened a shop or taken a dollar."

Referring to the company's relationship with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers in the UK, he said: "We do work with unions."

Leahy told the UFCW: "Your deeds do not match your words. Your words are conciliatory, but your deeds are aggressive and seek to undermine our business."

Up to 50 Unite members protested outside the meeting at the SECC, calling for better conditions in UK meat supply chains. But 300 shareholders who attended the meeting were far more concerned about Tesco's attempt to change its share options scheme. Only 57% of shareholders supported a resolution to give some Tesco executives a three-year window to cash in their share options if they leave the company. Although the protest vote was not big enough to block the plan, it was a significant rebuke from major City institutions.

Riskmetrics, the investor advisory service, had asked shareholders to block the changes to Tesco's share options plan under which executives who leave because of injury, illness, disability, redundancy, retirement or a sale of the business have a year to exercise their options. The company argued that loyal workers were losing out because of stockmarket volatility, but Riskmetrics said creating such a long time-gap was "not in line with best practice recommendations".

• Tesco
• Supermarkets
• Retail industry
• Trade unions
• United States

Over at Ford Motor Company they are betting the farm on a new model, actually an old one, called the Taurus. Well maybe not the farm, just a few acres of real estate. Well maybe not a few acres. Maybe just a few city blocks. In any case Ford is hoping that we consumers will be so thrilled by the new styling of the Taurus that we will all run down to our local Ford dealership starting on August 1, 2009. This is when the new, I mean old, whatever, Taurus arrives.

There is just one small problem. I would compare the new Taurus with a Honda Accord and a Toyota Camry. Both the Accord and Camry have a 4 cylinder for their base model. The base models start about $4k or more below the base price of a Taurus which doesn’t even offer a 4 banger. Ford also is going to have a SHO Taurus with a twin turbo V-6 sporting 365 horses. Price is only $37k +. Very reasonable. When gas goes back to $4 a gallon, which it will, you may wish you had a 4 banger pulling you around town.

It is going to be Chrysler that will be the leader over both GM and Ford. You ask why Chrysler? Because of Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne who is already breaking Chrysler apart. Each division will be on their own and if they fail they pack up their bags. Plus Fiat knows how to build quality small cars, with good gas mileage and that perform well. GM and Ford have no such leadership.

That’s my take. What is yours?

Comments welcome.

Source

A SIMPLE MISUNDERSTANDING

Rwanda says it has no plans to forcibly sterilize people who are mentally disabled

No, we’re not sterilizing them: we’re just making sure they don’t have babies.

JUST ORDER THEM TO STOP SMOKING

In attempt to stop smoking, Greece has banned smoking in all public places.

Look how well it worked in America!

U.S. orders suicide warnings on two anti-smoking drugs

Why not?  The cigarette packs already have warnings and look how well that works.*

A Guide To ’80s Sax Solos

And they say antidepressants can make you suicidal???

HOW MANY DO YOU KNOW WITH SWINE FLU?

The World Health Organization has said that the spread of the swine flu virus worldwide is now unstoppable.

Something about this is not quite right.

PRESIDENTIAL NEWS

Less Chances Of Testing For Colorectal, Breast Cancer For Poor Canadians

Socialized medicine strikes again!

Obama seeks to build support for health reform

Also plugs public hanging and cattle mutilation.

A 2-year-old girl was strangled by the family’s pet python Wednesday morning.

First Snake, anyone?

Honduras interim government says open to early election

Obama sends Florida delegation to help count votes.

TERROR IN THE SKIES

A U.S. Airways flight was forced to land early after a passenger stripped naked and refused to get dressed.

They ran out of dollar bills.

POLITICS IN GENERAL

Gay rights activists are belatedly stepping up religious messaging and outreach

“We may be an abomination against the Lord to you, but at least we’re not atheists!“

What to Expect From Family Values Groups on Republican Affairs

They’re against them.  Very quietly.

Legistalker: Track Online Activity of US Congressmen & Senators

Also Known As:  Porn Sites of the Fat and Bloated

DON’T CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA

South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has stated that Governor Mark Sanford did not misuse public funds when he went to see his mistress in Argentina.

“We find that Governor Sanford did not misuse public funds.  In fact, given the opportunity, we would have done the same thing.  Case closed. “

FLASH NEWS

The republican party, tarnished by more scandals than even the Catholic Church, has decided to nominate Barney Frank, the openly homosexual democrat from Massachusetts, as its presidential candidate.

A republican source, insisting on anonymity, said, “Hey, after Larry Craig, George Bush, and Mark Sanford, at least we know what Barney stands for.  There’s very little chance he will come out of the closet and declare himself straight after he gets into office.”

THE LINUX LINK

RTFM: What are man pages in linux?

————————————

* What they’re not telling you:  Zyban, the smoking-cessation drug, is relabeled Wellbutrin, the antidepressant.  Hey, don’t they already have suicide warnings on them?

Dailymotion announced today that Cedric Tournay has been named its new CEO. Tournay replaces Ian Brotherston, who was only in the job since April. Brotherston will stay on with the company but will move over to become executive vice president of international strategy.

MediaPost reports that Dailymotion always considered Brotherston’s appointment as CEO as an interim one, though that temporary status was not mentioned at the time. We dug up the April 21, 2009 press release announcing Brotherston as CEO, which didn’t say anything about his being interim:

Brotherston joined Dailymotion from Red Bee Media, the privatized Broadcast Technology Division of the BBC, where he was Commercial Director. A Dailymotion rep told us that the company was originally not going to announce Brotherston’s appointment since it was interim, and much of the initial press was based on leaked and incomplete information. The rep said at the time he was unable to comment on the CEO search.

Brotherston was brought on to replace then CEO Mark Zaleski, and at the time it was rumored that Dailymotion was looking to raise additional funding this year. Zaleski had been brought on from QXL in August 2007 as executive chairman.

Tournay was most recently the CEO of Doctissimo, one of the largest health and medical web sites in Europe, and managed its sale to Lagardere group.

Evite, a unit of Barry Diller's IAC (IACI), has undergone a restructuring and cost-cutting meant to right the struggling ad-driven business.

Nine of 38 employees were laid off, paidContent reports, Rosanna McCollough, GM, and Lariayn Payne, VP of Marketing, were among the casualites.

The online invitation service finds itself back under John Foley, who ran it from 2002-2005, but as part of his Pronto division of IAC.

Read the rest of this story »

News Corp (NWS) chairman Rupert Murdoch's media tour continues, and he gives Dan Freed at TheStreet.com some typical juicy morsels to gnaw on in a Q&A.

On buying the New York Times: "Nonsense. . . I haven't even thought about it. I would imagine that it would be legally and politically almost impossible, so I'm not thinking about it."

On the recent MySpace shakups, he says the division "sort of grew out of control and really out of size. I blame myself and it had to be brought back in size."

Read the rest of this story »

Fast Company:

Why Redbox is the biggest movie-rental company you’ve never heard of? Its secret: the power of in-between technology.

Redbox — founded in 2002 as a division of McDonald’s and purchased by Coinstar this year — runs 15,000 machines in stores across the country and plans to have about 20,000 in place by the end of the year. Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, the innovative darling of the movie-rental business, has called Redbox one of his most challenging rivals. “It’s really scary,” Hastings told The Hollywood Reporter in March.

Redbox is convenient and it’s cheap, but the company’s fortunes also rest on a more sophisticated calculation about the marketplace. Ask any entertainment bigwig where the movie-rental business is going and you’ll hear one thing: digital streaming. Amazon, Apple, Netflix, the cable companies, and many startups are gearing up to send every movie to your home on demand.

But Hollywood’s byzantine licensing structure precludes that from happening anytime soon. Redbox has positioned itself as the perfect in-between technology — the next best thing to on demand. It’s winning by being in more places than Blockbuster and faster than Netflix.

What’s surprising, though, is how much wizardry goes into making Redbox work. Each machine is connected to the Internet via DSL or a 3G cellular modem. This lets customers browse and reserve movies at their local Redbox through the Web, and return movies they rent from one Redbox to any other.

Each machine packs a sophisticated inventory-management system that determines how many copies of different new titles to order based on past performance of similar movies at that location. The kiosks send their inventory orders up to the mother ship every week, and Redbox’s technicians fan out to each kiosk to stock it with new DVDs.

“That’s the most interesting part — where technology meets old-fashioned field distribution,” Lowe says.

Continue Reading: “The Power Of In-Between Technology”

Photo by Redbox.

• Sony extending Official License Program to third-party accessory makers
• PSP No? Independent UK retailers not yet stocking PSP Go
• Another look at the PSP Go - controller connectivity, in-game XMB
• Andrew House in the house: why the PSP Go costs that much, why PS3 price has no conflict with recession woes
  

Naoya Matsui, the boss of Sony Computer Entertainment's product planning division, has revealed that the platform holder always planned to release a UMD-free PSP once the digital distribution market had matured.

"We'd planned to release a PSP model without a UMD drive since the very beginning," Matsui told GameBusiness.jp (via Develop).

read more