Dangerous Neighbors Research Articles

Położenie polityczno-wojskowe Rzeszy Niemieckiej u progu II wojny światowej w świetle wykładu szefa wywiadu wojskowego pułkownika dyplomowanego Tadeusza Pełczyńskiego

After Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, the country was quickly remilitarised. Large-scale rearmament and expansion of the armed forces were closely monitored by the Polish military intelligence, which kept the supreme military authorities of the Second Polish Republic informed about the Third Reich’s preparations for war. The main task of the Second Department was to determine the probable date of the attack from this country. Already at the end of 1934, it was estimated that Germany would be ready for war within 6-8 years. The information reaching the headquarters of the “two” showed that at the turn of 1937 and 1938, the Third Reich’s preparations for a future armed conflict were intensified. At the end of the 1930s, the Second Department organized special lectures for senior commanders of the Polish army, presenting the military, political, economic and social situation of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, i.e. the countries from which Poland faced the greatest danger. The idea was to make the senior command staff of the Polish Army acquainted with the current military and political situation of the Second Polish Republic and the scale of the threat from the two most dangerous neighbours. The presented lecture was delivered by the head of Polish military intelligence on November 29, 1937 in Rembertów and concerned Germany. It has great cognitive value because it allows us to understand the assessments of the Second Division regarding the military potential of the Third Reich and the expansion of the German armed forces. It is, in fact, a synthesis of the knowledge that the military intelligence of the Second Polish Republic had in 1937 about the German state ruled by the National Socialists.

Dangerous neighbours: Birds and bird-eating bats sharing tree cavities.

Mounting evidence indicates the non-consumptive effects of predators significantly impact prey physiology, ecology and behaviour. Passerine birds experience adverse effects on nesting and reproductive success when in proximity to predators. Fear of predators is context-dependent and influenced by hunting habitats and foraging strategies. While some bat species prey on birds, the greater noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus) stands out by specialising in avian prey, especially during peak bird migration. N. lasiopterus is thought to seize avian prey in flight, but direct evidence is lacking. If birds were taken from nests, they would likely avoid nesting near these bats. However, no observations support this view. This study documents the successful reproduction of Eurasian blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) nesting alongside a colony of approximately 25 greater noctules. This bird species is a prey species for greater noctules in Italy. Over about 1 month (April-May 2023), we observed parent birds provisioning food to chicks, with at least two chicks alive and fed outside the tree cavity by the end of the period. While acknowledging the limitations of a single observation, we propose that this previously unknown behaviour indirectly supports the idea that greater noctules only capture avian prey in flight, not within confined spaces. This observation challenges the perception that these bats pose a threat when sharing roosting spaces in trees, as evidenced in our observed case. We hope this novel observation inspires future research on variations in bird nesting behaviour and reproductive success in the presence of bird-eating bats, as well as an assessment of the long-term impact on population dynamics and reproductive success of nesting birds sharing such roosting spaces.

The Role of Small States in Promoting International Security: Lithuania Strategy

The aim of the present article is to analyse the efforts taken aimed to build the security of the region as part of Lithuanian foreign policy in the international arena in the era of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This article seeks to verify the hypothesis that small states are able to set in motion a process that can benefit the entire region, and thus they may contribute to building international peace and security. The theoretical basis of the research is post-structural theory, from its perspective Lithuania accepts and actively shapes its identity as a small state, which is defined primarily in relation to its large and dangerous neighbor. This helps explain the small country’s consistent pursuit of integration and being an active player in the international arena, which was supposed to help it break away from the Soviet past and “return to the West.” Thus, this study contributes to knowledge on the practice of international relations by reflecting on the growing role of the Baltic States.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF UKRAINE’S ACCESS TO THE EUROPEAN UNIO

The article is devoted to the study of the possible economic consequences of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union for this organization. Most researchers pay attention first of all to the possible results of Ukraine’s accession to the EU for itself. However, in order to understand the motives of certain opposition of Ukraine’s movement to this organization on the part of some of its members, it is important to assess the results of such accession for the EU and its members. Studies have shown that Ukraine is capable of strengthening the economic and security positions of the European Union. This can be realized through the creation of a defense hub in Ukraine, which will not only produce military products for supply to EU countries, but also provide its own army to protect the borders of the European Union. The undersaturated domestic market of Ukraine can become a driver for the European economy on its way out of the long depression. Cheap, but high-quality and motivated labor force in Ukraine, as well as its proximity to the European market, creates favorable conditions for the relocation of European investments from the countries of Southeast Asia. Ukraine’s natural resources will be able to reduce the dependence of EU countries on external suppliers and create favorable conditions for the development of «green» energy. At the same time, with the accession of Ukraine to the EU and NATO, the length of the border with such a dangerous neighbor as Russia is significantly increasing, which will require additional costs to strengthen it. In order to turn the potential gains from Ukraine’s accession to the EU into reality, significant expenditures on providing assistance to our country are necessary. Since Ukraine has significantly worse economic indicators than other EU countries, with its accession the average indicators for the EU will also deteriorate, which will negatively affect the global image of the organization. We should also not forget about the growing level of competition on European markets in those areas where Ukraine already has significant potential (agriculture, logistics, etc.). Understanding both the potential gains and threats is important for the proper construction of the EU membership strategy. Joint efforts are needed to create favorable conditions for realizing gains and minimizing potential threats.

THE OTTOMAN POSITION ON THE RUSSO JAPANESE WAR IN THE FAR EAST 1896-1905

The research aims to shed light on the Ottoman position on the Russo-Japanese war in the Far East 1904-1905; Where the Ottoman Empire took an intriguing stance, there was a discrepancy between the popular stance and the official stance of the Attic State. The Ottoman people took the stance of open hostility to the Russians, and supported Japan in its struggle against Russia, and the people and intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire showed a great desire for Japan’s victory and defeat.” Petersburg ". While we find the position of Sultan Abdul Hamid and the Ottoman Empire in contradiction to the position of the public towards the people; He adopted the policy of strategic balance in the conflict between the Japanese and the Russians, considering that Russia is the largest neighboring country to the Ottoman Empire, and it still poses a great danger to the property of the Ottoman Empire that must be avoided. Therefore, the Ottoman Sultan followed a completely different plan and policy to the trends of public opinion. He was keen to support Japan, and at the same time avoided angering the European countries that supported the Russians and the possibility of confronting Russia, which is the strongest and most dangerous neighbor to him. Therefore, Sultan Abdul Hamid II adopted many other strategies, and followed a neutral policy towards Russia and Japan, went in the direction of the policy called the policy of balances. We also discussed in this research the development of Ottoman-Japanese relations before the Russo-Japanese war, and focused on the causes of the conflict between the Japanese and Russian states, and its repercussions on the balance of power in the region. And the international position on this conflict, We dealt with the American endeavors to end the war between the two parties under the Port Smouth Agreement, and discussed the effects of the Japanese victory over Russia and its repercussions on the peoples of the East. Key words: Russo, Japanese War, Far East, Abdul Hamid Ii, Ottoman Empire.

Rola tajnych służb w rozpoznaniu zagrożenia bezpieczeństwa Polski. O efektach działalności wywiadowczej berlińskiej placówki „In 3”

W 1918 r. Polska odzyskała niepodległość. Bezpieczeństwo Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej było jednak oparte na kruchych podstawach. Wynikało to z dużego zagrożenia ze strony wschodniego i zachodniego sąsiada. Niemcy i Rosja nie pogodziły się z ustaleniami traktatu wersalskiego, dążyły do jego rewizji i wojny z Polską. Współpraca wojskowa obu groźnych sąsiadów była wymierzona przeciwko Polsce. Rozpoznanie wywiadowcze dotyczące rozbudowy potencjału militarnego oraz zamiarów obu przeciwników miało wyjątkowe znaczenie. Rotmistrz, a później major Jerzy Sosnowski w latach 1926–1934 kierował berlińską placówką wywiadowczą oznaczoną kryptonimem „In 3”. Przekazywał on do centrali Oddziału II SG wiele cennych informacji dotyczących rozwoju niemieckich sił zbrojnych, współpracy Reichswehry z Armią Czerwoną oraz przygotowań do wojny. Kierownictwo polskiego wywiadu otrzymywało podobne wiadomości z innych źródeł. Wiele z nich przyjmowano z niedowierzaniem i nie wykorzystano we właściwy sposób.

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America, by James Alexander Dun & Intimate Bonds: Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic, by Jennifer L. Palmer

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America, by James Alexander Dun & Intimate Bonds: Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic, by Jennifer L. Palmer

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America, by James Alexander Dun

Despite the appearance of more and more scholarly work on the Haitian Revolution and its effects, we still know only parts of the story of how news of a mighty slave rebellion and the subsequent creation of the western hemisphere’s second republic was received in, and then influenced, the area’s first republic, the United States. This deeply researched and engaging volume goes a long way to filling that gap. And while this is a story that most historians of race or of the ‘age of democratic revolution’ believe to be a familiar one, James Alexander Dun’s book succeeds in restoring contingency to the narrative, enabling us to see how white Americans reacted to constantly shifting and contradictory events with unforeseeable outcomes. Dun focuses his study on Philadelphia, and, although no one place can represent the entire American republic, Philadelphia is perhaps the most representative. The most centrally located of America’s major cities, Philadelphia had both slavery and abolitionism, extensive trading links with northern and southern colonies and the Caribbean beyond, and was home to the most ethnically diverse population in the nation. Indeed, more refugees from France and from Haiti made their way to Philadelphia than any other American city. It was also the capital city of a large state, and served as the national capital during the final decade of the eighteenth century. Most importantly for Dun, Philadelphia’s newspaper editors pulled news from all over the Atlantic World and beyond, and as something approaching national publications they then disseminated this news around the United States. Much of what Americans from Kentucky to Boston to Virginia learned of the Haitian Revolution came from Philadelphia’s newspapers.

Dangerous neighbours: sorcery, conspicuous exchange and proximity among urban migrants in northern Mozambique

AbstractUrban migrants in Nampula City, northern Mozambique, perceive themselves to be living in an environment where they are particularly vulnerable to sorcery attacks. Key to this sense of vulnerability are Makhuwa notions of matrilineal descent and relatedness, which work to locate sorcery fears in the interstices of two kinds of proximity, namely social and physical. Accordingly, people fear the translocal reach of the ill will of kin residing in the countryside, with whose well-being they remain connected regardless of the physical distance. Simultaneously, there are threats posed by urban neighbours who, due to their proximity in physical terms but separation in social terms, are considered dangerous. This article analyses practices of conspicuous exchange as one of the strategies urban migrants employ in coping with these anxieties. Specifically, it draws on the life histories of two women in one neighbourhood of Nampula City to explore the challenges they experience in meeting demands for material assistance from rural kin and urban neighbours. The analysis shows that their accounts of sorcery are structured by the difficulty of balancing such demands in a setting of poverty and socio-economic inequality. This finding has implications for anthropological theories of sorcery, misfortune and urban migration.

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America by James Alexander Dun

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America by James Alexander Dun

" Le Sens Commun ": Atlantic Pathways and Imagination in Saint-Domingue's Affiches Américaines

"Le Sens Commun":Atlantic Pathways and Imagination in Saint-Domingue's Affiches Américaines Robert D. TaberiD "A pamphlet circulates in the colonies of America with the title 'Common Sense.' Mister Adams, one of the delegates to Congress, happens to be the author. This work entirely erases the idea of reconciliation and excites the Colonies to independence."1 One of the most prominent historiographic conversations regarding the Haitian Revolution is the Revolution's impact on slaveholding societies elsewhere in the Americas.2 One of the most recent works, Dun's Dangerous Neighbors, raises a provocative thesis: that the consumption of news about the Haitian Revolution pushed Philadelphians to define and limit the changes proposed by the ideals of the American Revolution.3 While the thesis merits extended conversation among historians of the early American republic, this study inverses Dun's question. The political and social rebellions of the American Revolution took place during the height of the colonial productivity of Saint-Domingue (colonial Haiti). In contrast to the British colonies or metropolitan France, the colony had a mere two printing presses, one in Cap Français and the other in Portau-Prince, and the one newspaper was not merely published under the aegis of the colonial state, but the editor was a state employee. Yet, the newspaper Affiches Américaines regularly published dispatches regarding other colonies in the Americas. Dominguans (residents of Saint Domingue) who read the newspaper- or heard it being read-would have been aware of political and, to a lesser extent, social and cultural changes elsewhere in the Americas, but particularly British North America, including the reprinting of excerpts from "patriot" pamphlets, as discussed below. This initial analysis finds that news traveled to Saint-Domingue through official and unofficial routes, provided raw material for colonists across the color line and any enslaved who had access to literacy in French or conversation to shape their geographic imaginings and political views in the decades immediately prior to the French and Haitian Revolutions, and served as a significant aspect of the public sphere in late colonial Saint-Domingue.4 Saint-Domingue had only recently established a newspaper. Official proclamations would be printed and posted in broadsheet and read at mass, but the project to create a colonial newspaper appears to have [End Page 569] not begun until after the Seven Years' War, a century after Versailles dispatched the first French governor. While it is unclear if the government of Saint-Domingue created the newspaper in response to demand from colonists, it was founded by an incoming intendant in 1764 as part of a post-war effort to foster the colony's commercial viability. Printed on a state press, it would reflect state needs that would also "be to the Colony's advantage." The first editor of the paper received two instructions: print names of captured slaves sitting in the colonial jail and print the names of recently deceased owners of plantations and "other notable persons," "immediately after their death." The newspaper therefore began in the colony as an engine for regulating labor and clarifying inheritance.5 Royal attorneys, in charge of monitoring town jails, were supposed to alert the paper about captured slaves.6 With two months' notice "unclaimed" slaves would be auctioned off by the state.7 The paper, therefore, began and served as an official vehicle for the planter class and the colonial state.8 However, Affiches Américaines was not a simple propaganda organ, but rather fostered public conversation regarding the needs of the colonists. Writers from Port-au-Prince kept the rest of the colony abreast of the spread and impact of disease during the first half of 1766. "The death that we thought had stopped, took 60 persons from us last month . . . Our Spectacle, almost fallen, was raised by the Citizens with a praiseworthy zeal; but we are not better off, many Actors being sick."9 Local doctors would respond with advertisements for remedies. A naval surgeon working in Saint-Marc announced that he had a medicine to treat the "diarrhea, the most common, most obstinate, and most terrible sickness in this climate": "A stomachic, absorbent, aperitif & antiscorbutic Opiate" that had proven its efficacy...

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking

Humor and Latina/o Camp in “Ugly Betty”: Funny Looking

James Alexander Dun. Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America.

James Alexander Dun. Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America.

Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America by James Alexander Dun

Reviewed by: Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America by James Alexander Dun Jeffery L. Stanley (bio) Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America. By James Alexander Dun. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. viii, 342. $45.00 cloth; $45.00 ebook) James Alexander Dun's Dangerous Neighbors is a well-researched and creative study of how early Americans contextualized the Haitian Revolution within political discourse about their own revolution and used the drama in Saint Domingue as a sounding board for partisan political rhetoric in America's early party system. Dun's work makes a valuable contribution to a growing field of scholarship that explores the Haitian Revolution's reverberations throughout the Atlantic world, specifically building on the work of historians such as Ashli White and François Furstenberg who have recently analyzed the impact of refugees from Saint Domingue on American politics during the early republic period. As a study of public discourse, Dangerous Neighbors relies mainly on newspapers and political pamphlets published in Philadelphia from 1789 to 1804. Dun demonstrates convincingly that the Philadelphia press commentary on Haiti changed over time, reverberated across the young republic, and influenced national political discourses. The author's command of the histories of both the Haitian Revolution and the early republic is a strength of Dangerous Neighbors. The book consists of an introduction and seven chapters arranged chronologically according to different phases of the Haitian Revolution. Chapter one discusses the initial phase of "Philadelphia's Haitian Revolution" from the outset of the French Revolution in 1789 to the French Legislative Assembly's May 15, 1791, law that granted political equality to free people of color in Saint Domingue born to free parents. This development led to a public debate that broadened the implications of the universal declarations at the heart of the American Revolution as the proto-Republican (Dun's term to identify those who would later join Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party) defenders of the French Revolution argued for the positive effects of the May 15 law. Chapters two, three, and four discuss the [End Page 666] next phase of the Haitian Revolution in Philadelphia, which began in August 1791 as slaves rose up on Saint Domingue's North Plain, setting fire to the cane fields and launching the first successful slave uprising in the Western Hemisphere. Although American observers condemned the violence and bloodshed emanating from Saint Domingue, proto-Republican commentators in Philadelphia used the event as an avenue to discuss the potential danger of slavery in the United States, leading to "a high tide of Revolutionary-era antislavery sentiment and activity" (p. 21). Chapters five and six discuss the impact of Toussaint Louverture's rise to power on discussions about the meaning of the Haitian Revolution for the United States. Louverture's rise occurred in the context of an increasingly bitter partisan divide between Federalists and Republicans amid the Quasi-War with France. As Louverture increasingly steered Saint Domingue toward independence, Federalists championed cooperation with his government as a way to strike against France while Republicans "married a simmering effort to expose the Federalists as betrayers of American honor and independence to a portrait of Louverture as a despot" (p. 147). Chapter seven discusses the final phase of the Haitian Revolution, marked by former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines's declaration of Haitian independence in 1804. As the first black republic, Haiti became "an alien and dangerous place" in the minds of white Americans, and commentators increasingly dismissed events there as "irrelevant to their discussions about race, slavery, and revolution" (p. 23). Dun suggests that "in reducing the intricate and nuanced revolutionary agendas at work in Saint Domingue over the period to a simple portrait of black violence, Americans pieced together a basic agreement about their own nation's Revolution, one that marked it as complete" (p. 23). Dun's most important contribution is to show that Haiti's legacy in the United States was an historical construction that developed during extended public discourse about the revolution in the early republic. Initially, events in Saint Domingue sparked genuine debate about the meaning of the American Revolution for slavery and racial [End Page 667...

Book Review: Dangerous Neighbors: Volcanoes and Cities

Dangerous Neighbors: Volcanoes and Cities. By Grant Heiken (2013) Cambridge University Press, $30, 196 pages, ISBN: 9781107039230. Grant Heiken, a world-renowned volcanologist, has written a book based on his long history investigating volcanic hazards that is absolutely riveting. Eight of the ten chapters focus on the interplay between major metropolises and destructive volcanoes. The introductory chapter sets the stage for the remainder of the book. This chapter touches on various types of volcanic events; from Nyiragongo lava flows that disrupted the city of Goma, DRC, to debris flows from Nevado del Ruiz that killed 23,000 residents in Armero, Columbia, to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland which spewed an ash column into the jet stream and disrupted air travel to 32 European countries for 6 days. Other issues weaved into …

Grant Heiken: Dangerous neighbors: volcanoes and cities

This book is about the substantial dangers posed by many active (or potentially active) volcanoes around the world to large cities near them. It is written by Grant Heiken, one of the world’s top experts in Bsocietal volcanology^ and volcanic hazards, and edited by his wife Jody Heiken. Whereas I do not work on volcanic hazards, I procured this book out of a general interest in the subject, appreciation of its importance, and a desire to be better informed on it. This small-format book has a beautiful cover with a night photograph of Yokohama city and Mount Fuji which suits the theme of the bookwell. The book begins with a Preface and an Introduction. The Introduction describes some actual volcanic crises (such as Nevado del Ruiz 1985 and Eyjafjallajokull 2010) and discusses questions such as why people should want to live near dangerous volcanoes (beautiful landscapes, fertile soils, etc.). This is followed by eight chapters containing selected case studies of cities near dangerous volcanoes, including Naples (Ch. 1), Mexico City (Ch. 2), Quito (Ch. 3), Manila (Ch. 4), Japanese cities (Shimabara, Kagoshima, and Tokyo, Ch. 5), Auckland (Ch. 6), American cities (Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland, Ch. 7), and the ancient Minoan city of Akrotiri and Plymouth on Montserrat (both combined in Ch. 8). The ninth, final chapter concludes with a general discussion of how a city should respond to a volcanic crisis and presents a summary world map and table of large (>100,000 population) cities near dangerous volcanoes. This chapter is followed by a short recommended reading list, acknowledgements, and an index. Whereas I had expected a technical-level text, this is more a popular science book directed at the layperson. It presents a good amount of historical information about specific places and their volcanoes mixed with the author’s travel accounts. The Introduction contains Bsome basic questions^ at the end, such as howmany volcanoes are erupting now or have erupted in historical time. The source of this information is Simkin and Siebert’s BVolcanoes of the World^ (1984, Geoscience Press), and the recommended reading list includes the second edition of this book (1994, Geoscience Press). Quite surprisingly, the third edition of this work (Siebert et al., 2010, University of California Press), which should be the standard reference for such data, has not been used or mentioned. The language of the text is informal, even casual at times, and there are Bpersonal notes^ at the end of some chapters and distracting trivial information on topics like the suitable time period of consumption of mozzarella cheese (Preface) and the author’s physical height (Ch. 5). Some more desirable information is not given, such as the name of the Ecuadorian volcanologist who received a gold medal from the government Editorial responsibility: K. Nemeth

Alpha-lipoic acid protects against cadmium-induced hepatotoxicity via calcium signalling and gap junctional intercellular communication in rat hepatocytes.

This study investigated the protective effect of alpha-lipoic acid (LA) on cadmium (Cd)-induced hepatotoxicity in BRL 3A rat liver cells. We demonstrated that LA ameliorated Cd-induced cellular injury in cell viability and nuclear fragmentation in BRL 3A cells. Furthermore, LA markedly ameliorated Cd-induced gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) inhibition and Cx43 mRNA expression decrease, as well as disassembly of gap junctions. The gap junction blocker carbenoxolone disodium (CBX) as well as LA protected healthy cells from Cd-exposed cells in Transwell co-culture system. LA also protected BRL 3A cells against Cd-induced elevation of the intracellular concentration of free calcium ([Ca(2+)]i). Pretreatment with a chelater of intracellular Ca(2+) BAPTA-AM or chelater of extracellular Ca(2+) EGTA attenuated Cd-induced cytotoxicity and GJIC inhibition. CBX exacerbated the decrease in cell viability and further elevated the increase in [Ca(2+)]i induced by Cd, whereas BAPTA-AM partly attenuated these phenomena, while EGTA had little effects. These results suggested that Cd-induced hepatotoxicity via GJIC inhibition and [Ca(2+)]i elevation, which originates mainly from intracellular stores. GJIC inhibition has dual effects: (i) it restricts release of Ca(2+) from the cell, which exacerbates the [Ca(2+)]i elevation and cytotoxicity induced by Cd; and (ii) it protects healthy cells from their dangerous neighbors by blocking intercellular communication. Above all, our results indicated that LA partly prevented Cd-induced cytotoxicity via GJIC and calcium signaling in BRL 3A rat liver cells.

Dangerous Neighbours: Volcanoes and Cities

Dangerous Neighbours: Volcanoes and Cities