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Un stagiaire ukrainien du cours de recours à la force, donnée par les policiers militaires canadiens, s’exerce à fouiller un édifice pendant l’Op UNIFIER à Irpin, près de Kiev en Ukraine.
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Photo: Forces armées canadiennes.
AK51-2016-036-002.
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A Ukrainian candidate from the Use of Force course conducted by Canadian Military police instructors conducts a building search in Irpin near Kiev during Op UNIFIER..
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Photo: Canadian Armed Forces .
AK51-2016-036-002
Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers announced the Cisco Unified Computing System as part of a 10-city global event over the company's TelePresence system.
Unified Communications( kmesystems.com/our-process-for-success/ ) represents the integration of tools that necessary for people exchange ideas and do their jobs. KMESystems gives the communication tools like IP phone, presence technology and instant messaging etc.
Captains Kit Conn and Christopher Slauson, with the 21st Airlift Squadron, Travis Air Force Base,Calif., pilot a c-17 Globemaster III loaded with U.S. Army equipment from Fort Bragg, N.C., in support of Haiti earthquake relief efforts, Jan. 27, 2010. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Joshua L. DeMotts)
Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers huddled with leading industry executives after announcing the company's new Cisco Unified Computing System. From left to right: Bob Muglia, president of Server and Tools Business for Microsoft; Chambers; Joe Tucci, chairman, president and CEO of EMC Corporation; William Green, chairman and CEO of Accenture; Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMWare; Bob Beauchamp, CEO of BMC Software.
Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers displayed an ad placed by Intel congratulating Cisco on its new Cisco Unified Computing System.
NBA Cares Ambassador Ruth Riley watches as Abel Mehari of Minnesota, USA, is defended by Jeong-Hun Na of Korea. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
A Ukrainian soldier detonates a charge during explosive door breaching practice with Canadian and American combat engineer instructors of Joint Task Force – Ukraine during Operation UNIFIER at the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre in Starychi, Ukraine on February 23, 2017.
Photo: Joint Task Force - Ukraine
AK51-2017-017-002
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Un soldat ukrainien fait exploser une charge lors d’un exercice d’ouverture de porte à l’explosif avec des instructeurs du génie de combat canadiens et américains de la Force opérationnelle interarmées – Ukraine au cours de l’opération UNIFIER, au Centre international de sécurité et de maintien de la paix, à Starychi, en Ukraine, le 23 février 2017.
Photo : Force opérationnelle interarmées - Ukraine
AK51-2017-017-002
Participating in the operation Unified Protector in Libya
Photo : A.Roiné © ecpad/EMA
More photos :
www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/photos_71902.htm
More info on NATO & Libya :
Bagan; (formerly Pagan) is an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Burma (Myanmar). From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10.000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day.
The Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main draw for the country's nascent tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
ETYMOLOGY
Bagan is the present-day standard Burmese pronunciation of the Burmese word Pugan, derived from Old Burmese Pyugam (meaning 'Pyu Village'). Its classical Pali name is Arimaddana-pura, lit. "the City that Tramples on Enemies". Its other names in Pali are in reference to its extreme dry zone climate: Tattadesa, "parched land", and Tampadipa, "bronzed country". The Burmese chronicles also report other classical names of Thiri Pyissaya and Tampawaddy.
HISTORY
7th to 13th CENTURIES
According to the Burmese chronicles, Bagan was founded in the second century CE, and fortified in 849 CE by King Pyinbya, 34th successor of the founder of early Bagan. Mainstream scholarship however holds that Bagan was founded in the mid-to-late 9th century by the Mranma (Burmans), who had recently entered the Irrawaddy valley from the Nanzhao Kingdom. It was among several competing Pyu city-states until the late 10th century when the Burman settlement grew in authority and grandeur.From 1044 to 1287, Bagan was the capital as well as the political, economic and cultural nerve center of the Pagan Empire. Over the course of 250 years, Bagan's rulers and their wealthy subjects constructed over 10000 religious monuments (approximately 1000 stupas, 10000 small temples and 3000 monasteries) in an area of 104 square kilometres in the Bagan plains. The prosperous city grew in size and grandeur, and became a cosmopolitan center for religious and secular studies, specializing in Pali scholarship in grammar and philosophical-psychological (abhidhamma) studies as well as works in a variety of languages on prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, medicine, and legal studies. The city attracted monks and students from as far as India, Ceylon as well as the Khmer Empire. The culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox. It was largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu (Saivite, and Vaishana) schools as well as native animist (nat) traditions. While the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism since the mid-11th century had enabled the Buddhist school to gradually gain primacy, other traditions continued to thrive throughout the Pagan period to degrees later unseen.
The Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 due to repeated Mongol invasions (1277–1301). Recent research shows that Mongol armies may not have reached Bagan itself, and that even if they did, the damage they inflicted was probably minimal. However, the damage had already been done. The city, once home to some 50.000 to 200.000 people, had been reduced to a small town, never to regain its preeminence. The city formally ceased to be the capital of Burma in December 1297 when the Myinsaing Kingdom became the new power in Upper Burma.
14th to 19th CENTURIES
Bagan survived into the 15th century as a human settlement, and as a pilgrimage destination throughout the imperial period. A smaller number of "new and impressive" religious monuments still went up to the mid-15th century but afterward, new temple constructions slowed to a trickle with fewer than 200 temples built between the 15th and 20th centuries. The old capital remained a pilgrimage destination but pilgrimage was focused only on "a score or so" most prominent temples out of the thousands such as the Ananda, the Shwezigon, the Sulamani, the Htilominlo, the Dhammayazika, and a few other temples along an ancient road. The rest - thousands of less famous, out-of-the-way temples - fell into disrepair, and most did not survive the test of time.
For the few dozen temples that were regularly patronized, the continued patronage meant regular upkeep as well as architectural additions donated by the devotees. Many temples were repainted with new frescoes on top of their original Pagan era ones, or fitted with new Buddha statutes. Then came a series of state-sponsored "systematic" renovations in the Konbaung period (1752–1885), which by and large were not true to the original designs - some finished with "a rude plastered surface, scratched without taste, art or result". The interiors of some temples were also whitewashed, such as the Thatbyinnyu and the Ananda. Many painted inscriptions and even murals were added in this period.
20th CENTURY TO PRESENT
Bagan, located in an active earthquake zone, had suffered from many earthquakes over the ages, with over 400 recorded earthquakes between 1904 and 1975. The last major earthquake came on 8 July 1975, reaching 8 MM in Bagan and Myinkaba, and 7 MM in Nyaung-U. The quake damaged many temples, in many cases, such as the Bupaya, severely and irreparably. Today, 2229 temples and pagodas remain.
Many of these damaged pagodas underwent restorations in the 1990s by the military government, which sought to make Bagan an international tourist destination. However, the restoration efforts instead drew widespread condemnation from art historians and preservationists worldwide. Critics are aghast that the restorations paid little attention to original architectural styles, and used modern materials, and that the government has also established a golf course, a paved highway, and built a 61-meter watchtower. Although the government believed that the ancient capital's hundreds of (unrestored) temples and large corpus of stone inscriptions were more than sufficient to win the designation of UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city has not been so designated, allegedly mainly on account of the restorations.
Bagan today is a main tourist destination in the country's nascent tourism industry, which has long been the target of various boycott campaigns. The majority of over 300.000 international tourists to the country in 2011 are believed to have also visited Bagan. Several Burmese publications note that the city's small tourism infrastructure will have to expand rapidly even to meet a modest pickup in tourism in the following years.
There is a well-known saying of Myanmar people : "If you are a real Myanmar, you must have been to Bagan." Bagan is spirit of history of Myanmar.
GEOGRAPHY
The Bagan Archaeological Zone, defined as the 13 x 8 km area centered around Old Bagan, consisting of Nyaung U in the north and New Bagan in the south, lies in the vast expanse of plains in Upper Burma on the bend of the Irrawaddy river. It is located 290 kilometres southwest of Mandalay and 700 kilometres north of Yangon. Its coordinates are 21°10' North and 94°52' East.
ARCHITECTURE
Bagan stands out for not only the sheer number of religious edifices of Myanmar but also the magnificent architecture of the buildings, and their contribution to Burmese temple design. The artistry of the architecture of pagodas in Bagan prove the achievement of Myanmar craftsmen in handicrafts. The Bagan temple falls into one of two broad categories: the stupa-style solid temple and the gu-style hollow temple.
STUPAS
A stupa, also called a pagoda, is a massive structure, typically with a relic chamber inside. The Bagan stupas or pagodas evolved from earlier Pyu designs, which in turn were based on the stupa designs of the Andhra region, particularly Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda in present-day southeastern India, and to a smaller extent to Ceylon. The Bagan-era stupas in turn were the prototypes for later Burmese stupas in terms of symbolism, form and design, building techniques and even materials.
Originally, an Indian/Ceylonese stupa had a hemispheric body (Pali: anda, "the egg") on which a rectangular box surrounded by a stone balustrade (harmika) was set. Extending up from the top of the stupa was a shaft supporting several ceremonial umbrellas. The stupa is a representation of the Buddhist cosmos: its shape symbolizes Mount Meru while the umbrella mounted on the brickwork represents the world's axis. The brickwork pediment was often covered in stucco and decorated in relief. Pairs or series of ogres as guardian figures ('bilu') were a favourite theme in the Bagan period.
The original Indic design was gradually modified first by the Pyu, and then by Burmans at Bagan where the stupa gradually developed a longer, cylindrical form. The earliest Bagan stupas such as the Bupaya (c. 9th century) were the direct descendants of the Pyu style at Sri Ksetra. By the 11th century, the stupa had developed into a more bell-shaped form in which the parasols morphed into a series of increasingly smaller rings placed on one top of the other, rising to a point. On top the rings, the new design replaced the harmika with a lotus bud. The lotus bud design then evolved into the "banana bud", which forms the extended apex of most Burmese pagodas. Three or four rectangular terraces served as the base for a pagoda, often with a gallery of terra-cotta tiles depicting Buddhist jataka stories. The Shwezigon Pagoda and the Shwesandaw Pagoda are the earliest examples of this type. Examples of the trend toward a more bell-shaped design gradually gained primacy as seen in the Dhammayazika Pagoda (late 12th century) and the Mingalazedi Pagoda (late 13th century).
HOLLOW TEMPLES
In contrast to the stupas, the hollow gu-style temple is a structure used for meditation, devotional worship of the Buddha and other Buddhist rituals. The gu temples come in two basic styles: "one-face" design and "four-face" design - essentially one main entrance and four main entrances. Other styles such as five-face and hybrids also exist. The one-face style grew out of 2nd century Beikthano, and the four-face out of 7th century Sri Ksetra. The temples, whose main features were the pointed arches and the vaulted chamber, became larger and grander in the Bagan period.
INNOVATIONS
Although the Burmese temple designs evolved from Indic, Pyu (and possibly Mon) styles, the techniques of vaulting seem to have developed in Bagan itself. The earliest vaulted temples in Bagan date to the 11th century, while the vaulting did not become widespread in India until the late 12th century. The masonry of the buildings shows "an astonishing degree of perfection", where many of the immense structures survived the 1975 earthquake more or less intact. (Unfortunately, the vaulting techniques of the Bagan era were lost in the later periods. Only much smaller gu style temples were built after Bagan. In the 18th century, for example, King Bodawpaya attempted to build the Mingun Pagoda, in the form of spacious vaulted chambered temple but failed as craftsmen and masons of the later era had lost the knowledge of vaulting and keystone arching to reproduce the spacious interior space of the Bagan hollow temples.)
Another architectural innovation originated in Bagan is the Buddhist temple with a pentagonal floor plan. This design grew out of hybrid (between one-face and four-face designs) designs. The idea was to include the veneration of the Maitreya Buddha, the future and fifth Buddha of this era, in addition to the four who had already appeared. The Dhammayazika and the Ngamyethna Pagoda are examples of the pentagonal design.
ECONOMY
Bagan's economy is based mainly on tourism. Because of boycotts against the previous military government, the Bagan region's tourism infrastructure is still quite modest by international standards. The city has a few international standard hotels and many family-run guesthouses. Bagan is also the center of Burmese lacquerware industry, which to a large degree depends on tourist demand. Much of the lacquerware is destined for souvenir shops in Yangon, and to the world markets. Moreover, the lacquerware-making process itself has become a tourist draw.
WIKIPEDIA
From left: Tamika Catchings, WNBA Player for the Indiana Fever (24); Edwin González of Puerto Rico (11); Felix Veloz of New York, USA (6); Chris Mullin, NBA Legend and Hall of Famer; Edgardo Dávila of Puerto Rico; Cedriek Beerten of Belgium (17). Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Abel Mehari of Minnesota, USA, defended by NBA legend Detlef Schrempf. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Des Moines Public Schools and Special Olympics have been doing more and more work over the past year or two around the Unified Champions School program, providing an opportunity for students of different abilities to compete together. While taking photos of a recent varsity basketball game between Hoover and North high schools I had a chance to catch the action of the schools' unified basketball teams.
Strikes, spares and gutter balls were thrown, as students from all five DMPS comprehensive high schools rolled the afternoon away with Unified Bowling at Bowlerama Lanes on Wednesday, October 20th.
Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMWare, listened to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers announce the new Cisco Unified Computing System over TelePresence.
Abel Mehari of Minnesota, USA in red, defended by NBA Legend Detlef Schrempf. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
South aisle west window by Frederick Preedy, 1870.
Unified scene: The Annunciation.
This set of 20 images of the stained glass at Alvechurch start at the east window and go round the church clockwise.
All stained glass details from Pevsner, Worcestershire (Alan Brooks, 2007) with additional information from The Stained Glass of Frederick Preedy (Michael Kerney, 2001.)
www.worcesteranddudleyhistoricchurches.org.uk/index.php?p...
OAKLEY, CA - MARCH 10: In conjunction with Unified Basketball and Special Olympics of Northern California, the Golden State Warriors host a basketball clinic for nine Bay Area unified high school basketball teams. Led by the Golden State Warriors youth basketball staff, this clinic is designed to focus on skill development and teamwork. The clinic is geared towards recognizing the athletes participating in unified basketball and providing them with some added excitement heading into their spring season on March 13, 2018 at Freedom High School in Oakley, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
OAKLEY, CA - MARCH 10: In conjunction with Unified Basketball and Special Olympics of Northern California, the Golden State Warriors host a basketball clinic for nine Bay Area unified high school basketball teams. Led by the Golden State Warriors youth basketball staff, this clinic is designed to focus on skill development and teamwork. The clinic is geared towards recognizing the athletes participating in unified basketball and providing them with some added excitement heading into their spring season on March 13, 2018 at Freedom High School in Oakley, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
Edwin González of Puerto Rico, defended by Jason Collins, NBA Cares Ambassador. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
DUNE will search for rare subatomic phenomena to bring us closer to realizing Einstein’s dream of a unified theory of matter and energy.
Cedriek Beerten of Belgium and Keyuana Davis of Florida, USA, pursue a loose ball. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Felix Veloz of New York, USA. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Cedriek Beerten of Belgium. Twelve Special Olympics basketball players from around the world teamed up with current and former NBA and WNBA starts in the NBA Cares Unified Sports basketball game on Feb 14, 2015. The game was in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
A Canadian Armed Forces member deployed on Operation UNIFIER demonstrates drone capabilities during the Advanced Sapper course in Europe on 19 September 2025.
Please credit; Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician.
Image Release Authority:Lt(N) Jennifer Gray 550, Senior PAO Op UNIFIER.
A member of the Armed Forces of Ukraine operates a drone at Operation UNIFIER’s Engineer Training Element, in Poland, on 20 December 2024.
Photo by: Canadian Armed Forces Imagery Technician
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Un membre des forces armées ukrainiennes utilise un drone à l’élément d’instruction du génie de l’opération UNIFIER, en Pologne, le 20 décembre 2024.
Photo : Technicien en imagerie des Forces armées canadiennes