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The year 1989 marked a turning point in world history, a watershed year of unprecedented drama and political significance. No matter how one looks at those events-as the fall of communism, the democratization of Eastern Europe, or the end of the cold war-it is important to understand how the world travelled the distance of time, space, and ideology to arrive at the Berlin Wall and tear it down. David Mason provides that understanding in a concise synthesis of history, politics, economics, sociology, literature, philosophy, and popular, as well as traditional, culture. He shows how all these elements combined to yield the year that effectively closed the twentieth century-and promised to launch the new century on a hopeful note. Starting with Poland's elections in June 1989, the countries of then-communist Eastern Europe one by one revolutionized their governments and their polities; Hungary opened its borders to the West, East Germany rushed through, Czechoslovakia elected Vaclav Havel president, Bulgaria changed both party and leadership, and Romania executed Ceausescu. Although Gorbachev enabled many of these changes, he did not cause them. The illumination of the complex symbiosis between dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is one of the greatest contributions this book makes. With undercurrents emphasizing the power of ideas, the spirit of youth, and the multifaceted force of culture and ethnicity, Mason takes the reader far beyond the events of change and into their impetus and outcomes. He applies theories of social movements, democratization, and economic transition with an even hand, showing the interaction of their effects not only regionally but worldwide. The concluding chapter puts the revolutions in Eastern Europe into international perspective and highlights their impact on East-West relations, security alliances, and economic integration. Mason discusses the European Community, the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Third World in relation to the new East-Central European configuration. Using delightful and provocative cartoons from Eastern European and Soviet presses, interesting photos, valuable tables of data, and illuminating figures, Mason emphasizes important points about the role of nationalism, ethnicity, public opinion, and harsh economic reality in the revolutionary process.

I. Overall Concepts of Soil Quality, Sustainable Development and Environmental Security; Synopsis and Overview -- Soil, Sustainability and Security; the Importance of Ecosystem Integrity -- Soil Quality in Relation to the Concepts of Multifunctionality and Sustainable Development -- II. Soil Quality Studies in Central and Eastern European Countries; Synopsis and Overview -- The Heavy Metals and Sulphur Status of Agricultural Soils in Poland -- Organic Contaminants in Agricultural Soils in Central and East European Countries as Compared to West European Countries; Example of PAHs -- Quality and Contamination of Agricultural Soils in Hungary as Indicated by Environmental Monitoring and Risk Assessment -- Contamination and Degradation of Soils in the Czech Republic — Contemporary and Future State -- The Present Status of the Soil Environment in Russia -- III. Studies Emphasizing some Western Examples of Management Practices and Strategies Relating to Agricultural Sustainability and Environmental Security; Synopsis and Overview -- Agro-Environmental Aspects of Land Disposal of Industrial Wastes -- Long-Term Field Experiments and Implications for Soil Quality Assessment with Respect to Organic Contaminants; The Significance of Sewage Sludge Applied to Agricultural Land -- Organic Farming on Large Farms with Special Reference to Eastern Germany; Management strategies, environmental effects and economic aspects -- Minimum Tillage Technology as an Alternative to Traditional Systems: Environmental Implications and their Relevance to Poland and other CEES -- Soil Physical Quality and The Effects of Management -- Herbicide Management to Maintain Environmental Quality; Lessons to be Learned from North American Herbicide Management Practice -- Controlling Animal Waste Management in Denmark as Related to Soil and Water Quality -- The use of Soil Data to Predict Environmental Sensitivity to Pollution -- IV. Management Practices Relating to Agricultural Sustainability and Environmental Security, Emphasizing Examples from Central and Eastern Europe; Synopsis and Overview -- Impact of Management Practices on Soil Quality in CEE Countries with Particular Reference to Poland -- Application of Sludges for Remediation of Contaminated Soil Environment -- Past, Present and Future Status of N-Fertilization Policies in Hungary -- Soil Tillage Systems Applied in Russia to Prevent Soil Erosion and Degradation -- A Mechanism for the Self-Regulation of Fertility in Ukrainian Chernozems -- Conservation and Non-Plough Systems of Crop Production in Ukraine with Increased Reproduction of Soil Fertility -- An Erosion Control System for Sustainable Land use in a Lithuanian Catchment -- Rehabilitation of Acid Soils by Liming and Longterm Manurial Treatment -- Interacting Effects of Liming, Fertilization and Plant Breeding in some Lithuanian Soils in Relation to Environmental Protection -- V. Socio-Economic Aspects of Agricultural Sustainability and Environmental Security in Central and East European Countries; Synopsis and Overview -- Appropriate Agricultural Policies to Sustain Agriculture in the Central and Eastern European Countries -- Future of Polish Agriculture: Possibilities and Problems -- Opportunities for Sustainable Agriculture in the CEECs with Particular Emphasis on Poland -- Assessments of Environmental Policy Measures: A Farm Approach -- VI. Conclusions and Recommendations -- List of Workshop Participants -- Coloured Plates.

The East-West gap in the German population is believed to originate from migrants escaping the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We use newly collected regional data and the combination of a regression discontinuity design in space with a difference-in-differences approach to document that the largest part of this gap is due to a massive internal migration wave 3 years prior to the establishment of the GDR. The timing and spatial pattern of this migration movement suggest that the dominant motive was escaping physical assault by the Soviet army and not avoiding the socialist regime. The skill composition of these migrants shows a strong positive selection. The gap in population has remained remarkably sharp in space and is growing.

Introduction. On the basis of new resources, the article examines the actions of the Nazi agencies which inculcated sabotage groups of betrayers and experienced German agents on the Ju-290 of the Luftwaffe in 1943-1944 in the Kalmyk steppe. The main purpose of the German operations was to conduct reconnaissance and sabotage actions in the rear of the red army to cause the uprising of the population of Kalmykia.

Methods and materials. Scientific, popular science publications that have appeared in recent years and documents introduced into scientific circulation cover only the general picture and fragmentary episodes of special operations of secret Luftwaffe units. The main source base of the article consists of unpublished documents identified by the author in the funds of the State Archives of the Russian Federation. These are documents about the results of the interrogations of some of the leaders of the fascist special services, certificates, reports, cases of various Soviet special services and officials addressed to the leaders of the highest party, state bodies, the NKVD of the USSR. These documents are devoted to the results of the fight against banditry in the country, with desertion, evasion of service.

Analysis and results. The Abwehr group (Otto Verba's103 officers with the agent name - the doctor Doll) having the false information about the readiness of the rebels for uprising planned to raise a rebellion of the Kalmyk population. In this connection, the German special services planned a special operation under the code name Salzsee ('Salt lake'). In October 1943 and May 1944 the Germans using the newest Junkers landed prepared saboteurs groups of collaborators and experienced scouts in the central part of the Kalmyk steppe. Some of the crews of aircraft and saboteurs were destroyed by the chekists, captured scouts agreed to cooperate with the SMERSH and to participate in the radio game. As a result, due to the radio game Aryans held by the Soviet intelligence, the Abwehr group intentions had completely failed. The Germans lost two new Ju-290 aircrafts with crew members and experienced scouts. During the operation Dr. Doll secretly disappeared and after the war found himself in the Eastern part of Germany.

In this thesis, so far insufficiently considered characteristics of long-run equilibriums in food markets are investigated. For this purpose, multivariate time series methodologies, which were developed for the estimation of long-run relationships by allowing for causality and convergence, are employed. In three essays, the proposed procedures are applied to food prices in Germany, the United States and Europe. The long-run equilibrium is defined as a state of an economic system (e.g. a market), to which the variables of the system revert as a consequence of economic mechanisms after being affected by shocks. For the analysis of a long-run equilibrium scholars usually resort to the framework of cointegration. However, the corresponding econometric tests are limited to detecting the existence of a fixed long-run equilibrium of endogenous variables. This thesis contributes to the literature by proposing alternative methodologies, which enable an estimation of long-run equilibriums and thereby allow to take further properties into account, such as causality and convergence. Exogenous shocks, like macroeconomic or policy changes, evidentially have an influence on food markets. Analyses of such relationships benefit from the procedures, which actually consider the causality structure. A well-known methodology, which measures the impact of a permanent change in the level of one variable on the level of another variable, is the long-run neutrality test of Fisher and Seater (1993). Their procedure is utilized here to investigate the influence of exogenous shocks on food prices. This empirical application is the first undertaking of this kind to be used in the literature. Furthermore, an extension of the basic framework is proposed, which considers a second exogenous variable in the relationship. However, in some markets the long-run equilibrium is not fixed. The alterations might be triggered by policy measures or changes in market characteristics (e.g. spatial modifications, transaction cost reductions or supply chain improvements). The econometric concept of convergence can be deployed in order to determine whether the market efficiency is improving or worsening. In this thesis, the test of Phillips and Sul (2007), which is by definition a quite general procedure, is utilized for this purpose. The concept of convergence, particularly the aforementioned test, has not yet been employed intensively to study the dynamics of food markets. Furthermore, this thesis makes important empirical and political contributions to the analysis of food markets. In the first case study, the impacts of money supply changes initiated by the European Central Bank and of agricultural policy modifications implemented by the European Commission on German food prices are investigated. Research into the influence of money supply on agricultural product prices has never been conducted on such a disaggregated level before. The results show that aggregated agricultural prices are neutral in the long run, whereas the effects differ for different disaggregated markets. Staple food prices in particular, are more sensitive to changes in money supply due to good storability and demand inelasticity. In contrast, animal product prices are less sensitive to money supply changes, perhaps due to larger demand elasticities and quick production adjustments. Furthermore, the policy component in the model reveals that the dynamics triggered by the EU's decoupling policies (Mid-Term Review) increase production efficiency for specific products. In a second case study, a theoretical model, which explains the influence of money supply on food markets, is derived in order to research the long-run impact of money supply on U.S. agricultural prices over the last five decades. The results reveal that agricultural prices as a whole and most individual product prices are neutral in response to money supply in the long run. However, the prices of products with large supply elasticities with respect to money supply remain significantly below a neutral equilibrium. Hence, the producers of these commodities are particularly vulnerable to monetary policy changes. In the third case study, the unsteadiness of the long-run equilibriums of important livestock prices within the EU is analyzed. The occasional changes in the market structure result from policy measures, which are intended to offset the remaining non-tariff trade barriers, and the enlargements of the EU. Moreover, the different currencies in the market might contribute to the heterogeneity in the adjustment to a long-run equilibrium. In order to investigate these hypotheses, the single market after the important expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe in 2004 is analyzed. Including all EU countries, the results confirm that market efficiency is increasing. In a separate analysis of the new member states, their catching-up process is confirmed. Additionally, a comparison of EMU and non-EMU countries shows that the common currency significantly contributes to a further integration.

Individuelles Handeln verdient aktuell aus zwei Gründen verstärkt soziologische Aufmerksamkeit. Zum einen sind die radikalen gesellschaftlichen Umbrüche in den ehemaligen Ostblockstaaten seit 1989 in einem erheblichen Umfang Resultat des Handelns der Menschen in diesen Ländern. Zum anderen wollen die Individuen angesichts der Globalisierungsprozesse, der Neubelebung traditioneller Werte und der daraus erwachsenden Herausforderungen an den Sozialstaat ihre eigene Lage mehr selbstverantwortlich und eigenen Zielen folgend, beeinflussen.

Between 2020 and 2021, Israel concluded normalisation agreements with four Arab states. They were celebrated internationally as a breakthrough. Meanwhile, since 2018, and largely unnoticed by the public, Arab states have started repairing their relations with Syria. Finally, in January 2021, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ended their boycott of Qatar during the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. Changing assessments of the regional security situation and converging interests have enabled these rap­prochements. However, these developments do not mean that the region is moving towards peace and stability; on the contrary, long-lasting conflicts remain unresolved and the threat perceptions of third actors are being exacerbated. Germany and its partners in the EU should avoid being co-opted by local and regional conflicting par­ties and should instead focus on supporting regional conflict management. (author's abstract)

اندلعت الحرب العالمية الأولى بعد اكتمال الظروف الموضوعية لمراكز القوى الأوروبية واستعداداتها العسكرية والصناعية والتقنية،وعندما أعلنت الإمبراطورية الروسية الحرب على إمبراطورية النمسا والمجر في بداية شهر آب 1914م، وردت ألمانيا بإعلان الحرب على روسيا الأمر الذي دفع حلفاء روسيا في غرب أوروبا إلى إعلان الحرب على ألمانيا والنمسا حتى 4/8/1914م، وتوغلت الجيوش الألمانية على الجبهتين الشرقية والغربية، وافتخرت بانتصاراتها حتى بداية عام1917م عندما اشتركت الولايات المتحدة في الحرب منذ نيسان 1917م، وبدأت موازين القوى تتحول لصالح الحلفاء على الجبهة الغربية حتى نهاية الحرب، وأرغمت ألمانيا على وقف كل العمليات العسكرية بتاريخ 9/11/1918م، الأمر الذي دفع قيصر ألمانيا فيلهلم الثاني (Kaisar Wilhelm II ) على التنازل عن العرش ومغادرة ألمانيا إلى هولندا.وبدأت القوى المنتصرة (الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، وبريطانيا، وفرنسا) من تنظيم مباحثات مؤتمر السلام، الذي بدأ منذ 18/1/1919م وانتهى بتاريخ 21/1/1920م وبعد توقيع معاهدة فرساي بتاريخ 28/6/1919م حيث حددت بنودها اعترافاً ألمانيا بالمسؤولية الكاملة عن الحرب، وفرضت شروطاً عسكرية وسياسية، وتنازلات خطيرة عن الأراضي، ودفع التعويضات، وشكلت إذلالاً لألمانيا وجردتها من عناصر القوة العسكرية والاقتصادية.وفرضت معاهدة فرساي تعويضات مالية باهظة تُدفع بالمارك الذهب؛ مما أثقل وقع العقوبات حيث اضطرت الحكومة الألمانية للاقتراض من البنوك الأمريكية. وساهمت هذه الظروف في نشأة وتطور قوى النازية الألمانية، تلك التي مهدت لحزب العمال القومي الألماني الاشتراكي بالصعود إلى السلطة من خلال الانتخابات البرلمانية. ; World War I started when the European powers had reached a sufficient level of military, technical, and industrial preparation. It was at the beginning of August 1914, when the Russian Empire announced war against the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Germany replied back declaring war against Russia and as a consequence, the Russian allies in Western Europe declared war to Germany in 04/08/1914. Until the beginning of 1917, the German armies, in a continuous row of victories, penetrated into the Eastern and Western fronts. The course of the war had a decisive change when the USA entered the conflict at the beginning of April 1917. The allied powers started to regain terrain of the Western front, eventually forcing Germany to cease all military operations in 09/11/1918. The complete defeat urged the German Emperor, Wilhelm II (Kaisar Wilhelm II) to abdicate and flee to Holland. The victorious powers, USA, UK and France, embarked in the Paris Peace Conference, which started in 18/01/1919 and ended in 21/01/1920. The Treaty of Versailles followed in 28/06/1919,whose the provisions required Germany to accept full responsibility for having caused the war. The treaty further required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Powers. The conditions and consequences of the Treaty were regarded as a complete humiliation for Germany, as they were depriving the country from many of its military and economic powers

اندلعت الحرب العالمية الأولى بعد اكتمال الظروف الموضوعية لمراكز القوى الأوروبية واستعداداتها العسكرية والصناعية والتقنية، عندما أعلنت الإمبراطورية الروسية الحرب على إمبراطورية النمسا والمجر في بداية شهر آب 1914م، وردت ألمانيا بإعلان الحرب على روسيا الأمر الذي دفع حلفاء روسيا في غرب أوروبا إلى إعلان الحرب على ألمانيا والنمسا حتى 4/8/1914م، وتوغلت الجيوش الألمانية على الجبهتين الشرقية والغربية، وافتخرت بانتصاراتها حتى بداية عام1917م ،وعندما اشتركت الولايات المتحدة في الحرب منذ نيسان 1917م، وبدأت موازين القوى تتحول لصالح الحلفاء على الجبهة الغربية حتى نهاية الحرب، وأرغمت ألمانيا على وقف كل العمليات العسكرية بتاريخ 9/11/1918م، الأمر الذي دفع قيصر ألمانيا فيلهلم الثاني (Kaisar Wilhelm II ) على التنازل عن العرش ومغادرة ألمانيا إلى هولندا. وبدأت القوى المنتصرة (الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، وبريطانيا، وفرنسا) من تنظيم مباحثات مؤتمر السلام، الذي بدأ منذ 18/1/1919م وانتهى بتاريخ 21/1/1920م وبعد توقيع معاهدة فرساي بتاريخ 28/6/1919م إذْ حددت بنودها اعترافاً ألمانيا بالمسؤولية الكاملة عن الحرب، وفرضت شروطاً عسكرية وسياسية، وتنازلات خطيرة عن الأراضي، ودفع التعويضات، وشكلت إذلالاً لألمانيا وجردتها من عناصر القوة العسكرية والاقتصادية، فرضت معاهدة فرساي تعويضات مالية باهظة تُدفع بالمارك الذهب؛ مما أثقل وقع العقوبات حيث اضطرت الحكومة الألمانية للاقتراض من البنوك الأمريكية. وساهمت هذه الظروف في نشأة وتطور قوى النازية الألمانية، تلك التي مهدت لحزب العمال القومي الألماني الاشتراكي بالصعود إلى السلطة من خلال الانتخابات البرلمانية. ; World War I started when the European powers had reached a sufficient level of military, technical, and industrial preparation. It was at the beginning of August 1914, when the Russian Empire announced war against the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Germany replied back declaring war against Russia and as a consequence, the Russian allies in Western Europe declared war to Germany in 04/08/1914. Until the beginning of 1917, the German armies, in a continuous row of victories, penetrated into the Eastern and Western fronts. The course of the war had a decisive change when the USA entered the conflict at the beginning of April 1917. The allied powers started to regain terrain of the Western front, eventually forcing Germany to cease all military operations in 09/11/1918. The complete defeat urged the German Emperor, Wilhelm II (Kaisar Wilhelm II) to abdicate and flee to Holland. The victorious powers, USA, UK and France, embarked in the Paris Peace Conference, which started in 18/01/1919 and ended in 21/01/1920. The Treaty of Versailles followed in 28/06/1919,whose the provisions required Germany to accept full responsibility for having caused the war. The treaty further required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Powers. The conditions and consequences of the Treaty were regarded as a complete humiliation for Germany, as they were depriving the country from many of its military and economic powers