Palau

well, it's been over a month...a rather long time, though personally, i didnt really notice when it flew away..I was out of town due to work for like almost a month, with the weekend-scheme being at home, and then on the road again...it got extremely tiring towards the end, but now i have some time to recharge for a bit...i wanted to post during this past month, but the time simply didnt allow it...so now I have like a week to squeeze in a number of updates, send a bunch of postcards before I finally take off on holiday for two weeks...oh yeah, holiday time! It was just today that it actually HIT me I was going somewhere....you know, when you are constantly out of town you dont actually get to notice and feel it since you are not at home anyways...but now it is starting to feel real! Uh...cant wait! Though im having a list of worries regarding all that...And where Im going...hmmm, well, ill keep it a secret for now...in case you already know, dont reveal it please :).
But before I reach my planned (and WELL deserved) destination, ill show you some more beauties that have arrived in my mailbox....

and first we start with a new gem in my collection...an awesome card from the small island of Palau, located in the Pacific Ocean. I was about to give the general facts and figures about the country, but then a few information caught my attention...
the first one was that Palau, in 1981, voted for the world's first nuclear-free constitution which banned the use, storage, and disposal of nuclear, toxic chemical, gas, and biological weapons without first being approved by a 3/4 majority in a referendum.
This ban held up Palau's transition to independence because while negotiating a Compact of Free Association with the United States, the U.S. insisted on the option to operate nuclear propelled vessels and store nuclear weapons within the territory.
After several referendums that failed to achieve a 3/4 majority, the people of Palau finally approved the Compact with the U.S. in 1994The second one was that On June 10, 2009, Palau announced that it would accept up to all 17 of the remaining Uyghurs detained in Guantanamo "as a humanitarian gesture". Five Uyghur captives were released without being prosecuted in 2004, and transferred to Albania in 2006. The remaining seventeen were released due to lack of evidence in 2008. I have no idea how Uyghurs ended up in Albania actually and why...funny..
Palau seems like such a peaceful place to be at...i will certainly not have associated it with nuclear weapons and detainees.....

the thank-yous for this awesome piece of card go to Patrick...and he used a bunch of fantastic stamps too!
the one on the left is a definitive issued in 2009 in a set of 10 fish stamps, showing the 'scissor tail fusilier' the bird stamps next to it are definitives issues in 2002 in a set of 18 birds' stamps which here portrays the Rufous Fantail. The Euoplea butterfly is also a definitive issued in a set of 18 butterfly stamps in 2007, while the birdy on the right comes from a set of 6 endemic birds of Palau' stamps issued in 2006, representing the Morning bird.