Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with search and rescue functions and lacking any law enforcement powers. However, a typical coast guard's functions are distinct from typical functions of both the navy (a pure military force) and a transportation police (a civilian law enforcement agency).

History

The modern Her Majesty's Coastguard of the United Kingdom was established in 1809 as the Waterguard, and was originally devoted to the prevention of smuggling as a department of the HM Customs and Excise authority. It was, however, also responsible for giving assistance to shipwrecks.

Each Water Guard station was issued with Manby's Mortar which was invented by Captain George William Manby in 1808. The mortar fired a shot with a line attached from the shore to the wrecked ship and was used for many years up and down the coastline. This began the process in which the Coastguard assumed a life saving role. In 1821 a committee of inquiry recommended that responsibility for the Preventative Water Guard be transferred to the Board of Customs. The Treasury agreed and in a Minute dated 15 January 1822, directed that the preventative services, which consisted of the Preventative Water Guard, cruisers, and Riding Officers should be placed under the authority of the Board of Customs and in future should be named the Coast Guard. In 1845 the Coastguard was subordinated to the Admiralty.

Swedish Coast Guard

The Swedish Coast Guard (Swedish: Kustbevakningen) is a Swedish civilian government agency tasked with:

The Swedish Coast Guard carries out some of its surveillance by air (from its base at Skavsta Airport south-west of Stockholm), and in the winter-time by hovercraft on the ice-covered waters of the Bothnian Bay from its Luleå station. The Coast Guard also has regular maritime duties in Vänern, Europe's third largest lake, operating out of Vänersborg.

Organization

The Coast Guard has 26 coastal stations, including an aviation coastal station. The stations fall under four regional areas; North (KRN), East (KRO), West (KRV) and South (KRS); with the regional headquarters located in Härnösand, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Karlskrona respectively. Four management centers controls the daily operational activities and there is also at least one duty officer around the clock. The Coast Guard's central headquarters is located in the historic 17th century naval city of Karlskrona, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Coast Guard (Haiti)

The Haitian Coast Guard, officially the Haitian Coast Guard Commission (French: Commissariat des Gardes-Côtes d’Haïti) or G-Cd'H, is an operational unit of the Haitian National Police. It is one of the few law enforcement organisations in the world to combine water policing and coast guard duties while remaining as a policing unit. It operates primarily as a law enforcement agency, with secondary responsibilities in search and rescue.

History

The Haitian Coast Guard was formed in the late 1930s, 20 years after the disbandment of the Haitian Navy, and was equipped with two small picket boats named 1 and 2 and the 161-ton Sans Souci. The latter was formerly the American yacht Captain James Taylor.

During World War II, six 83-foot cutters, named 1 through 6, were transferred from the US Coast Guard in 1942. Three 121-ton SC class submarine chasers, Touissaint L'Ouverture, 16 Aout 1946, and Admiral Killick, were transferred in 1947, along with the 47-ton cutter Savannah and the light transport Vertières. The two picket boats were withdrawn at this time.

Germany

Coordinates: 51°N 9°E / 51°N 9°E / 51; 9

Germany (/ˈdʒɜːrməni/; German: Deutschland [ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland,  listen ), is a federal parliamentary republic in West-Central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With about 81.5 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world.

Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.

West Germany

West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland or BRD) in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. This period is referred to as the Bonn Republic (German: Bonner Republik) by academic historians, an earlier term being the Bonn State (German: Bonner Staat).

During this period NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border. After 1961, West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states, became known simply as "Germany".

The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France (the "Western Zones"). Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990. The city of Bonn was its de facto capital city (Berlin was symbolically named the de jure capital city in the West German Basic Law). The fourth Allied occupation zone (the East Zone, or Ostzone) was held by the Soviet Union. The parts of this zone lying east of the Oder-Neisse were in fact annexed by the Soviet Union and communist Poland; the remaining central part around Berlin became the communist German Democratic Republic (abbreviated GDR; in German Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) with its de facto capital in East Berlin. As a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic.

Germany (horse)

Germany (9 May 1991 - December 2013) was a German Thoroughbred racehorse who won 9 of his 17 starts including 2 Group 1's in which he was ridden Frankie Dettori.

Background

Germany was a bay horse with black socks sired by 1987 the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Trempolino, who was bred in United States and bought as a yearling for $70,000 by the British trainer Ben Hanbury on behalf of Jaber Abdullah at the 1992 Keeneland September sales. He was trained by Bruno Schütz and was raced almost all of his career in Germany with an exception of the 1995 British Champion Stakes in which he failed to give his running on the good to firm ground.

Racing career

Germany raced only 4 times in his first 2 seasons and acquired his black type as a 2yo when winning the Kronimus-Rennen listed race in 1993 over a distance of 7 furlongs but was forced into a long absence having sustained a fracture in his off-fore.

He made his reappearance at four year old and was campaigned over middle distance races winning his first 2 starts in listed and group 3 events in the 1995 spring before adding couple more top level wins in the summer including the Group 1's Bayerisches Zuchtrennen and Grosser Preis von Baden, in the latter beating by 8 lengths in 3rd spot the Irish group performer Right Win who had shown great form in previous 2 seasons winning the Group 2 Gallinule Stakes when ridden by jockey Lester Piggott and Group 1 Gran Premio d'Italia. Germany's last and 8th start of the season was in the British Champion Stakes where after a long campaign and standard of opposition better than on home soil he could not finish in the placings.