Guyana ( or , ), officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Venezuela to the west, and Suriname to the east. With , Guyana is the third-smallest sovereign state by area in mainland South America after Uruguay and Suriname, and is the second-least populous sovereign state in South America after Suriname; it is also one of the least densely populated countries on Earth. It has a wide variety of natural habitats and a very high biodiversity.

The region known as "the Guianas" consists of the large shield landmass north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River known as the "land of many waters". Nine indigenous tribes reside in Guyana: the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio and Warao. Historically dominated by the Lokono and Kalina tribes, Guyana was colonised by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was governed as British Guiana, with a mostly plantation-style economy until the 1950s. It gained independence in 1966 and officially became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. The legacy of British rule is reflected in the country's political administration and diverse population, which includes Indian, African, Indigenous, Chinese, Portuguese, other European, and various multiracial groups. In 2017, 41% of the population of Guyana lived below the poverty line.

Guyana is the only South American nation in which English is the official language. However, the majority of the population speak Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole language, as a first language. Guyana is part of the Anglophone Caribbean. It is part of the mainland Caribbean region maintaining strong cultural, historical, and political ties with other Caribbean countries as well as serving as the headquarters for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). In 2008, the country joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member.

Guyana's economy has been undergoing a transformation since the discovery of crude oil in 2015 and commercial drilling in 2019, being one of the few economies to grow despite the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 at 49% GDP growth through the year, making it, by some accounts, currently the world's fastest-growing economy. As it is said to have 11 billion barrels in oil reserves, the country is on course to become one of the largest per capita oil producers in the world by 2030. The discovery of over 11 billion barrels of oil reserves off the coast of Guyana since 2017 is the largest addition to global oil reserves since the 1970s. Guyana is now ranked as having the fourth-highest GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, Canada, and The Bahamas, and has been one of the countries with the most improvement in Human Development Index ranking since 2015.

Etymology
The name "Guyana" derives from Guiana, an earlier name for a larger region that included the areas now called Guyana (British Guiana), Suriname (Dutch Guiana), French Guiana, the Guayana Region in Venezuela (Spanish Guyana), and Amapá in Brazil (Portuguese Guiana). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name "Guyana" comes from an indigenous Amerindian language and means "land of many waters". The word Co‑operative in the official name refers to co-operative socialism.

History

Before colonisation
What is now Guyana has been inhabited for millennia. Nine indigenous tribes reside in Guyana: the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio, and Warao. Many of these peoples practiced shifting agriculture alongside hunting. Historians speculate that the Arawaks and Caribs originated in the South American hinterland and migrated northward, first to the present-day Guianas and then to the Caribbean islands. The Arawak, mainly cultivators, hunters, and fishermen, migrated to the Caribbean islands before the Carib and settled throughout the region.

Colonial period
Although Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight Guyana during his third voyage (in 1498), and Sir Walter Raleigh wrote an account in 1596, the Dutch were the first Europeans to establish colonies: Pomeroon (1581), Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752). After the British assumed control in 1796, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814.

In 1831, the united colonies of Demerara-Essequibo and separate colony of Berbice together became a single British colony known as British Guiana.

Since its independence in 1824, Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River. Simón Bolívar wrote to the British government warning against the Berbice and Demerara settlers settling on land which the Venezuelans, as assumed heirs of Spanish claims on the area dating to the 16th century, claimed was theirs. In 1899, an international tribunal ruled that the land belonged to Great Britain. The British territorial claim stemmed from Dutch involvement and colonisation of the area also dating to the 16th century, which was ceded to the British.

Independence
Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom as a dominion on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. Shortly after independence, Venezuela began to take diplomatic, economic and military action against Guyana in order to enforce its territorial claim to the Guayana Esequiba. The US State Department and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with the British government, also played a strong role in influencing political control in Guyana during this time. The American government supported Forbes Burnham during the early years of independence because Cheddi Jagan was identified as a Marxist. They provided secret financial support and political campaign advice to Burnham's People's National Congress, to the detriment of the Jagan-led People's Progressive Party, which was mostly supported by Guyanese of Indian background.

Guyana was elected twice as member of the UN Security Council in 1975–76 and later 1982–83.

In 1978, a total of 918 people died at the Jonestown mass murder-suicide led by cult leader Jim Jones.

In May 2008, President Bharrat Jagdeo was a signatory to the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty of the Union of South American Nations. The Guyanese government officially ratified the treaty in 2010.

In March 2020, President David A. Granger narrowly lost the snap elections, following Granger's government loss of a vote of no confidence back in 2018. Granger refused to accept the results, but eventually five months later, Irfaan Ali of the People's Progressive Party/Civic was sworn in as the new president because of allegations of fraud and irregularities.

Geography

The territory controlled by Guyana lies between latitudes 1° and 9°N, and longitudes 56° and 62°W; it is one of the world's most sparsely populated countries.

The country can be divided into five natural regions: a narrow and fertile marshy plain along the Atlantic coast (low coastal plain) where most of the population lives; a white sand belt further inland (hilly sand and clay region), containing most of Guyana's mineral deposits; the dense rain forests (Forested Highland Region) in the southern part of the country; the drier savannah areas in the south-west; and the smallest interior lowlands (interior savannah) consisting mostly of mountains that gradually rise to the Brazilian border.

Some of Guyana's highest mountains are Mount Ayanganna (), Monte Caburaí () and Mount Roraima ( – the highest mountain in Guyana) on the Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela tripoint border, part of the Pakaraima range. Mount Roraima and Guyana's table-top mountains (tepuis) are said to have been the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World. There are also many volcanic escarpments and waterfalls, including Kaieteur Falls which is believed to be the largest single-drop waterfall in the world by volume. North of the Rupununi River lies the Rupununi savannah, south of which lie the Kanuku Mountains.

The four longest rivers are the Essequibo at  long, the Courentyne River at , the Berbice at , and the Demerara at . The Courentyne river forms the border with Suriname. At the mouth of the Essequibo are several large islands, including the  wide Shell Beach along the northwest coast, which is also a major breeding area for sea turtles (mainly leatherbacks) and other wildlife.

The climate is tropical and generally hot and humid, though moderated by northeast trade winds along the coast. There are two rainy seasons, the first from May to mid-August, the second from mid-November to mid-January.

Guyana has one of the largest unspoiled rainforests in South America, some parts of which are almost inaccessible by humans. The rich natural history of Guyana was described by early explorers Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Waterton and later by naturalists Sir David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell. In 2008, the BBC broadcast a three-part programme called Lost Land of the Jaguar which highlighted the huge diversity of wildlife, including undiscovered species and rare species such as the giant otter and harpy eagle.

In 2012, Guyana received a $45 million reward from Norway for its rainforest protection efforts. This stems from a 2009 agreement between the nations for a total of $250 million for protecting and maintaining the natural habitat. Thus far, the country has received $115 million of the total grant.

Biodiversity and conservation
Guyana is home to more than 900 species of birds; 225 species of mammals; 880 species of reptiles and more than 6,500 different species of plants. Among these wildlife categories the most notably famous are the Arapaima, which is the world's largest scaled freshwater fish; the giant anteater, the largest anteater; the giant otter, the world's largest and rarest river otter; and the cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola rupicola).

The following habitats have been categorised for Guyana: coastal, marine, littoral, estuarine palustrine, mangrove, riverine, lacustrine, swamp, savanna, white sand forest, brown sand forest, montane, cloud forest, moist lowland and dry evergreen scrub forests (NBAP, 1999). About 14 areas of biological interest have been identified as possible hotspots for a National Protected Area System.
More than 80% of Guyana is still covered by forests, which also contain the world's rarest orchids, ranging from dry evergreen and seasonal forests to montane and lowland evergreen rain forests. These forests are home to more than a thousand species of trees. Guyana's tropical climate, unique geology, and relatively undisturbed ecosystems support extensive areas of species-rich rain forests and natural habitats with high levels of endemism. There are about 8000 species of plants in Guyana, half of which are found nowhere else.

Guyana has one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. With 1,168 vertebrate species and 814 bird species, it boasts one of the richest mammalian fauna assemblages of any comparably sized area in the world. Guyana is home to six ecoregions: Guayanan Highlands moist forests, Guianan moist forests, Orinoco Delta swamp forests, Tepuis, Guianan savanna, and Guianan mangroves. The Guiana Shield region is little known and extremely rich biologically. Unlike other areas of South America, over 70% of the natural habitat remains pristine. Guyana ranks third in the world with a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.58/10.

The rich natural history of British Guiana was described by early explorers Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Waterton and later by naturalists Sir David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell.

Southern Guyana is host to some of the most pristine expanses of evergreen forests in the northern part of South America. Most of the forests found are tall, evergreen hill-land and lower montane forests, with large expanses of flooded forest along major rivers. Thanks to the very low human population density of the area, most of these forests are still intact. The Smithsonian Institution has identified nearly 2,700 species of plants from this region, representing 239 distinct families, and there are certainly additional species still to be recorded. The diversity of plants supports diverse animal life, recently documented by a biological survey organised by Conservation International. The reportedly clean, unpolluted waters of the Essequibo watershed support a remarkable diversity of fish and aquatic invertebrates, and are home to giant otters, capybaras, and several species of caimans.

On land, large mammals, such as jaguars, tapirs, bush dogs, giant anteaters, and saki monkeys are still common. Over 800 species of birds have been reported from the region, and the reptile and amphibian faunas are similarly rich.

In February 2004, the Government of Guyana issued a title to more than  of land in the Konashen Indigenous District as the Kanashen Community-Owned Conservation Area, managed by the Wai Wai, and the world's largest community-owned conservation Area. The Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development was also created for the protection and sustainable use of the Iwokrama forest area. Since 2009, Guyana and Norway have collaborated to promote green development in Guyana while keeping deforestation at low levels

Economy

The main economic activities in Guyana are agriculture (rice and Demerara sugar), bauxite and gold mining, timber, seafood, minerals, crude oil and natural gas.

The discovery of major crude oil reserves off the Atlantic coast has since made a large impact on Guyana's GDP since drilling began in 2019. GDP grew sharply (43%) through the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020, and is anticipated to continue at a high level in 2021 (estimated at 20%). The non-oil sectors contracted as public health measures were in place to control the virus spread; the growth of GDP rests on the oil sector for these two years.

Preservation of Guyana's pristine forests has been a key component for receiving international aid through REDD programs.

Summary
GDP: US$4.121 billion ($5,252 per capita, 2019 est.)
GDP growth rate: 86.7% (2020)
Inflation: 12.3%
Unemployment: 21.5% (2017)
Arable land: 2%
Labour force: 324,943 (2019)
Agricultural produce: sugar, rice, vegetable oils, beef, pork, poultry, dairy products, fish, shrimp
Industrial production: bauxite, sugar, rice milling, timber, textiles, gold mining
Exports: US$1.439 billion; Canada 24.9%, US 16.5%, Panama 9.6%, UK 7.7%, Jamaica 5.1%, Trinidad and Tobago 5% (2017)
Imports: US$1.626 billion; Trinidad and Tobago 27.5%, US 26.5%, China 8.9%, Suriname 6.1% (2017)

History
The earliest residents of Guyana employed a variety of agricultural practices for subsistence living but also had extensive networks of trade, dealing in items such as blow pipes, curare, cassava graters, and other essentials. These trade networks were important even at the time of the earliest European contact, and Dutch traders were inclined to gift the local peoples in order to maintain successful settlements.

After the initial rush to find gold in the New World waned, the Dutch found the climate to be suitable for growing sugar cane, converting large tracts of the Guyanese coast into plantations and supplying with labour from the Atlantic slave trade. The country and economy were run by a small European planter elite which continued on when the colonies of the territory were merged and the land was given over to the British Empire in 1814. Upon emancipation in 1838, almost all of the former slaves abandoned the plantations, and Indians were brought to the country under indenture contracts from 1838 until the end of the system in 1917.

The production of balatá (natural latex) was once a big business in Guyana. Most of the balata bleeding in Guyana took place in the foothills of the Kanuku Mountains in the Rupununi savannah. Early exploitation also took place in the North West District, but most of the trees in the area were destroyed by illicit bleeding methods that involved cutting down the trees rather than making incisions in them. Uses of balatá included the making of cricket balls, temporary dental fillings, and the crafting of figurines and other decorative items (particularly by the Macushi people).

When the country gained independence from British rule, a policy of nationalisation was enacted by Forbes Burnham to address the inequities that were established by plantation-based colonial rule. All large scale industries such as foreign-owned bauxite mining (Reynolds Metals and Rio Tinto's Alcan) and sugar (GuySuCo) operations were taken over by the government. However, the economy under nationalisation was plagued by problems; political instability leading to an exodus of skilled labour, inexperienced management, aging infrastructure. Poor international market conditions also expanded the country's debt.

The Guyanese economy rebounded slightly and exhibited moderate economic growth after 1999, due to expansion in the agricultural and mining sectors, a more favourable atmosphere for business initiatives, a more realistic exchange rate, fairly low inflation, and the continued support of international organisations. Guyana held huge amounts of debt which have been written off through various international agencies. In 2003 Guyana qualified for US$329 million of debt relief, in addition to the US$256 million from the original World Bank plan for assisting heavily indebted poor countries in 1999. The Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2006/7 wrote off about US$611 million of Guyana's debt by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. In 2006, Japan finalised its bilateral debt cancellation agreement, in 2007, US$15 million was written off by China and in 2008, Venezuela cancelled US$12.5 million.

In 2008, the economy witnessed a 3% increase in growth amid the global economic crisis; it grew 5.4% in 2011 and 3.7% in 2012. IMF projected economic growth to be 53% in 2020 following the completion of the first off-shore oil project. Actual growth in GDP in 2020 was 43%; reports in April 2021 anticipate 20% growth for 2021.

Tax policy
The government initiated a major overhaul of the tax code in early 2007. A Value Added Tax (VAT) replaced six different taxes. Prior to the implementation of the VAT, it had been relatively easy to evade sales tax, and many businesses were in violation of tax code. Many businesses opposed VAT introduction because of the extra paperwork required; however, the Government has remained firm on the VAT. Replacing several taxes with one flat tax rate, it will also be easier for government auditors to spot embezzlement.

Organizations
Major private sector organisations include the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI);

Demographics

The chief majority (about 90%) of Guyana's 744,000 population lives along a narrow coastal strip which ranges from a width of  inland and which makes up approximately only 10% of the nation's total land area.

The present population of Guyana is racially and ethnically heterogeneous, with ethnic groups originating from India, Africa, Europe and China, as well as indigenous or aboriginal peoples. Despite their diverse ethnic backgrounds, these groups share two common languages: English and Guyanese English Creole.

The largest ethnic group is the Indo-Guyanese (also known as East Indians), the descendants of indentured labourers from India who make up 43.5% of the population, according to the 2002 census. They are followed by the Afro-Guyanese, the descendants of enslaved people brought from Africa, primarily West Africa, who constitute 30.2%. The Guyanese of mixed heritage make up 16.7%, while the indigenous peoples (known locally as Amerindians) make up 9.1%. The indigenous groups include the Arawaks, the Wai Wai, the Caribs, the Akawaio, the Arecuna, the Patamona, the Wapixana, the Macushi, and the Warao. The two largest groups, the Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese, have experienced some racial tension.

The Afro-Guyanese population mainly descend from West African ethnicities such as the Ashanti from Ghana, the Yoruba from Southwest Nigeria, the Ibo from South-Eastern Nigeria, and the Mandingo from Senegal.
Most Indo-Guyanese are descended from indentured labourers who migrated from North India, especially the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt in the present day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. A significant minority of Indo-Guyanese are also descended from indentured migrants who came from the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh; these South Indian descendants are the plurality ancestry in the East Berbice-Corentyne region.

Largest cities

Languages

English is the official language of Guyana and is used for education, government, media, and services. The vast majority of the population speaks Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole with slight African, Indian, and Amerindian influences, as their native tongue.

Indigenous Cariban languages (Akawaio, Wai-Wai, and Macushi) are spoken by a small minority of Amerindians.

Guyanese Hindustani is spoken by the older generation of the Indo-Guyanese community, but younger Guyanese use English or Guyanese Creole.

Religion

Religious groups

Religious sect groups

In 2012 the population was 63% Christian, 25% Hindu, 7% Muslim.

Religion is an important aspect of identity in Guyana and reflects the various external influences of colonialism and immigrant groups. Christianity was considered the prestigious religion, transmitting European culture and representing upward mobility in the colonial society. Missionaries and churches built schools, and until nationalisation in the 1970s, nearly all schools were denominational. When Indians were brought to the country as indentured labour, Hinduism and Islam gained prominence, but for some decades neither were acknowledged for legal marriage.

Some traditional African and Amerindian folk beliefs remain alongside the dominant religions.

Health

Life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 69.5 years as of 2020.

The PAHO/ WHO Global Health Report 2014 (using statistics of 2012) ranked the country as having the highest suicide rate in the world, with a mortality rate of 44.2 per 100,000 inhabitants. According to 2011 estimates from the WHO, HIV prevalence is 1.2% of the teen/adult population (ages 15–49).

Education
Education in Guyana was primarily introduced and operated by missionising Christian denominations. The wealthy planter elite often sent their children for education abroad in England, but as schools improved in Guyana, they also modelled after the former British education system. Primary education became compulsory in 1876, although the need for children to assist in agricultural labour kept many children from schooling. In the 1960s, the government took over control of all schools in the country. Fees were removed, new schools were opened in rural areas, and the University of Guyana was established so students no longer were required to go abroad for tertiary education.Guyana's literacy was one of the highest in the Caribbean, by estimated literacy rate of 96 per cent in 1990. In a 2014 UNESCO estimate, literacy is 96.7 in the 15–24 year old age group. However, the functional literacy may be only as high as 70%.

Students are expected to take the NGSA (National Grade Six Assessment) for entrance into high school in grade 7. They take the CXC at the end of high school. Schools have introduced the CAPE exams which all other Caribbean countries have introduced. The A-level system, inherited from the British era, is offered only in a few schools.

Infrastructure challenges impact access to education, especially students in the hinterland. A World Bank assessment showed roughly 50% of teachers were "untrained, operated with inadequate teaching materials, and served children of parents with low levels of adult literacy".

Government

Politics

The politics of Guyana takes place in a framework of a Parliamentary representative democratic republic, in which the President of Guyana is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President and the Government. Legislative power is vested in both the President and the National Assembly of Guyana. Historically, politics are a source of tension in the country, and violent riots have often broken out during elections. During the 1970s and 1980s, the political landscape was dominated by the People's National Congress.

In 1992, the first constitutional elections were overseen by former United States President Jimmy Carter, and the People's Progressive Party led the country until 2015. The two parties are principally organised along ethnic lines and as a result, often clash on issues related to the allocation of resources. In the General Elections held on 28 November 2011, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) retained a majority, and their presidential candidate Donald Ramotar was elected as president.

On 11 May 2015, early general elections were held. A coalition of the A Partnership for National Unity-Alliance for Change (APNU-AFC) parties won 33 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly. On 16 May 2015, retired army general David A. Granger became the eighth President of Guyana. However, on 21 December 2018, a vote of confidence was called for, regarding terms under which the government granted a franchise for offshore oil exploration. Legislator Charrandass Persaud defected from the coalition and the vote failed, requiring new elections. The governing coalition litigated this result for the entire 90 days allowed for new elections. New elections were held on March 2, 2020, and results were declared on August 3, 2020, with the People's Progressive Party/Civic as the winner. Mohamed Irfaan Ali became the ninth President of Guyana.

Public procurement
Public procurement in Guyana is overseen by the Public Procurement Commission, appointed under the Public Procurement Commission Act 2003. Due to lengthy delay in identifying and agreeing commission members, the commission was not appointed until 2016.

Military

The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) is the military service of Guyana.

Human rights

Homosexual acts, as well as anal and oral sex, are illegal in Guyana. It is currently the only country in South America that prohibits such acts. Engaging in such acts can warrant life imprisonment, though the prohibition is not enforced. These laws can be difficult to alter, as Guyana's Constitution protects laws inherited from the British Empire from constitutional review. However, cross-dressing has been legal since 2018, when a ban was struck down by Guyana's court of last resort, the Caribbean Court of Justice. President David A. Granger (2015–2020) expressed support for these efforts.

Administrative divisions

Regions and Neighbourhood Councils
Guyana is divided into 10 regions:

The regions are divided into 27 neighbourhood councils.

Natural regions
Guyana is divided into four (4) natural regions.  These are:

 Low Coastal Plain
 Hilly Sand and Clay
 Highland Region
 Interior Savannahs

International and regional relations

Boundary disputes

Guyana is in border disputes with both Suriname, which claims the area east of the left bank of the Corentyne River and the New River in southwestern Suriname, and Venezuela which claims the land west of the Essequibo River, once the Dutch colony of Essequibo as part of Venezuela's Guayana Essequiba. The maritime component of the territorial dispute with Suriname was arbitrated by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, and a ruling was announced on 21 September 2007. The ruling concerning the Caribbean Sea north of both nations found both parties violated treaty obligations and declined to order any compensation to either party.

When the British surveyed British Guiana in 1840, they included the entire Cuyuni River basin within the colony. Venezuela did not agree with this as it claimed all lands west of the Essequibo River. In 1898, at Venezuela's request, an international arbitration tribunal was convened, and in 1899 the tribunal issued an award giving about 94% of the disputed territory to British Guiana. The arbitration was concluded, settled and accepted into International law by both Venezuela and the UK. Venezuela brought up again the settled claim, during the 1960s cold war period, and during Guyana's Independence period. This issue is now governed by the Treaty of Geneva of 1966, which was signed by the Governments of Guyana, the United Kingdom and Venezuela, and Venezuela continues to claim Guayana Esequiba. Venezuela calls this region "Zona en Reclamación" (Reclamation Zone) and Venezuelan maps of the national territory routinely include it, drawing it in with dashed lines.

Specific small disputed areas involving Guyana are Ankoko Island with Venezuela; Corentyne River with Suriname; and Tigri Area or New River Triangle with Suriname. In 1967 a Surinamese survey team was found in the New River Triangle and was forcibly removed. In August 1969 a patrol of the Guyana Defence Force found a survey camp and a partially completed airstrip inside the triangle, and documented evidence of the Surinamese intention to occupy the entire disputed area. After an exchange of gunfire, the Surinamese were driven from the triangle.

The Organisation of American States (OAS)
Guyana entered the Organisation of American States in 1991.

Indigenous Leaders Summits of America (ILSA)
With Guyana having many groups of indigenous persons and given the geographical location of the country, the contributions of the Guyanese to the OAS respecting indigenous people may be significant.

The position of the OAS respecting indigenous persons developed over the years. "The "OAS has supported and participated in the organisation of Indigenous Leaders Summits of Americas (ILSA)"

The Draft American Declaration of the Rights of the Indigenous Persons appears to be a working document

Agreements which affect financial relationships

The Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaty 1994
At a CARICOM Meeting, representatives of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana respectively signed The Double Taxation Relief (CARICOM) Treaty 1994 on 19 August 1994.

This treaty covered taxes, residence, tax jurisdictions, capital gains, business profits, interest, dividends, royalties and other areas.

FATCA
On 30 June 2014, Guyana signed a Model 1 agreement with the United States of America in relation to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
This Model 1 agreement includes a reference to the Tax Information Exchange Agreement (Clause 3) which was signed on 22 July 1992 in Georgetown, Guyana intending to exchange Tax information on an automatic basis.

Infrastructure and telecommunications

Transport

There are a total of  of railway, all dedicated to ore transport. There are  of highway, of which  are paved. Navigable waterways extend , including the Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo rivers.
There are ports at Georgetown, Port Kaituma, and New Amsterdam. There are two international airports (Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri and Eugene F. Correia International Airport (formerly Ogle Airport); along with about 90 airstrips, nine of which have paved runways. Guyana, Suriname and the Falkland Islands are the only three regions in South America that drive on the left.

Electricity

The electricity sector in Guyana is dominated by Guyana Power and Light (GPL), the state-owned vertically integrated utility. Although the country has a large potential for hydroelectric and bagasse-fuelled power generation, most of its 226 MW of installed capacity correspond to diesel-engine driven generators.

Several initiatives are in place to improve energy access in the hinterland.

Culture

Guyana's culture is very similar to that of the English-speaking Caribbean, and has historically been tied to the English-speaking Caribbean as part of the British Empire when it became a possession in the nineteenth century.

The current Guyanese culture began to develop when immigrants (some of them forced, others voluntary) adapted and converged with the dominant British culture. Slavery eradicated much of the distinction between differing African cultures as they were supplanted by British culture, which encouraged the adoption of Christianity and the values of British colonists; this laid the foundations of today's Afro-Guyanese culture. Arriving later and under somewhat more favourable circumstances, Indian immigrants were subjected to less assimilation, and they preserved more aspects of Indian culture, such as religion, cuisine, music, festivals, and clothing.

Guyana's geographical location, its sparsely populated rain-forest regions, and its substantial Amerindian population differentiate it from English-speaking Caribbean countries. Its blend of the two dominant cultures, Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese, gives it similarities to Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname, and distinguishes it from other parts of the Americas. Guyana shares similar interests with the islands in the West Indies, such as food, festive events, music, sports, etc.

Events include Mashramani (Mash), Phagwah (Holi), and Deepavali (Diwali).

Landmarks

St George's Anglican Cathedral: A historic Anglican Cathedral made of wood.
Demerara Harbour Bridge: The world's fourth-longest floating bridge.
Berbice Bridge: The world's sixth-longest floating bridge.
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Building: Houses the headquarters of the largest and most powerful economic union in the Caribbean.
Providence Stadium: Situated on Providence on the east bank of the Demerara River and built in time for the ICC World Cup 2007, it is the largest sports stadium in the country. It is also near the Providence Mall, forming a major spot for leisure in Guyana.
Arthur Chung Conference Centre: Presented as a gift from the People's Republic of China to the Government of Guyana. It is the only one of its kind in the country.
Stabroek Market: A large cast-iron colonial structure that looked like a statue was located next to the Demerara River.
Georgetown City Hall: A beautiful wooden structure also from the colonial era.
Takutu River Bridge: A bridge across the Takutu River, connecting Lethem in Guyana to Bonfim in Brazil.
Umana Yana: An Amerindian benab, that is a national monument built in 1972, for a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned nations (It was rebuilt in 2016).
Shell Beach: Approximately 140 km long beach. In some parts beach consists of pure shells, very high biological diversity. Important nesting site for 8 species of sea turtles.
Parliament Building of Guyana: Parliament Building currently houses the seat of the National Assembly of the Government of Guyana. Located in Stabroek, facing Brickdam and bordered by Hadfield Street, High Street, and Cornhill Street

Sports

The major sports in Guyana are cricket (Guyana is part of the West Indies cricket team for international cricket purposes), basketball, football and volleyball. Minor sports include softball cricket (beach cricket), field hockey, netball, rounders, lawn tennis, table tennis, boxing, squash, rugby, horse racing and a few others.

Guyana played host to international cricket matches as part of the 2007 Cricket World Cup (CWC 2007). The new 15,000-seat Providence Stadium, also referred to as Guyana National Stadium, was built in time for the World Cup and was ready for the beginning of play on 28 March. At the first international game of CWC 2007 at the stadium, Lasith Malinga of the Sri Lankan team took four wickets in four consecutive deliveries.

Guyana's national basketball team has traditionally been one of the top contenders at the CaribeBasket, the top international basketball tournament for countries in the Caribbean.

For international football purposes, Guyana is part of CONCACAF. The highest league in their club system is the GFF Elite League. Guyana's national football team has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup; however, they qualified for the Caribbean Cup in 1991, finishing fourth, and 2007. In 2019, they qualified for the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time, after finishing seventh in the qualifiers. They finished third in Group D, having lost two matches and drawn one.

Guyana also has five courses for horse racing.

Guyana featured a beach volleyball team at the 2019 South American Beach Games.

See also

Index of Guyana-related articles
Outline of Guyana
Petroleum industry in Guyana
Tourism in Guyana

Explanatory notes

References

Further reading

Donald Haack, Bush Pilot in Diamond Country
Hamish MacInnes, Climb to the Lost World (1974)
Andrew Salkey, Georgetown Journal (1970)
Marion Morrison, Guyana (Enchantment of the World Series)
Bob Temple, Guyana
Noel C. Bacchus, Guyana Farewell: A Recollection of Childhood in a Faraway Place
Marcus Colchester, Guyana: Fragile Frontier
Matthew French Young, Guyana: My Fifty Years in the Guyanese Wilds
Margaret Bacon, Journey to Guyana
Father Andrew Morrison SJ, Justice: The Struggle For Democracy in Guyana 1952–1992

D. Graham Burnett, Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography and a British El Dorado
Ovid Abrams, Metegee: The History and Culture of Guyana

Gerald Durrell, Three Singles To Adventure
Cheddi Jagan. The West on Trial: My Fight for Guyana's Freedom
Cheddi Jagan. My Fight For Guyana's Freedom: With Reflections on My Father by Nadira Jagan-Brancier.
Colin Henfrey, Through Indian Eyes: A Journey Among the Indian Tribes of Guiana.
Stephen G. Rabe, US Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story.
Charles Waterton, Wanderings in South America.
David Attenborough, Zoo Quest to Guiana (Lutterworth Press, London: 1956).
John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge, 2011.

External links

Office of the President, Republic of Guyana (official website).
Parliament of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana (official website).

Guyana. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
Country Profile from the BBC News.
Guyana from the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Guyana at UCB Libraries GovPubs.

The State of the World's Midwifery, Guyana Country Profile .
Key Development Forecasts for Guyana from International Futures.

The Guianas
Republics in the Commonwealth of Nations
Countries in South America
Small Island Developing States
Countries and territories where English is an official language
Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas
Former monarchies of South America
Member states of the Caribbean Community
Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations
Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Member states of the Union of South American Nations
Member states of the United Nations
States and territories established in 1966
1966 establishments in South America

Guyana


Australian English is a major variety of the English language spoken throughout Australia. Most of the vocabulary of Australian English is shared with British English, though there are notable differences. The vocabulary of Australia is drawn from many sources, including various dialects of British English as well as Gaelic languages, some Indigenous Australian languages, and Polynesian languages.

One of the first dictionaries of Australian slang was Karl Lentzner's Dictionary of the Slang-English of Australia and of Some Mixed Languages in 1892. The first dictionary based on historical principles that covered Australian English was E. E. Morris's Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages (1898). In 1981, the more comprehensive Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English was published. Oxford University Press published the Australian Oxford Dictionary in 1999, in concert with the Australian National University. Oxford University Press also published The Australian National Dictionary.

Broad and colourful Australian English has been popularised over the years by 'larrikin' characters created by Australian performers such as Chips Rafferty, John Meillon, Paul Hogan, Barry Humphries, Greig Pickhaver and John Doyle, Michael Caton, Steve Irwin, Jane Turner and Gina Riley.  It has been claimed that, in recent times, the popularity of the Barry McKenzie character, played on screen by Barry Crocker, and in particular of the soap opera Neighbours, led to a "huge shift in the attitude towards Australian English in the UK", with such phrases as "chunder", "liquid laugh" and "technicolour yawn" all becoming well known as a result.

Words of Australian origin
The origins of some of the words are disputed.
Battler – a person with few natural advantages, who works doggedly and with little reward, who struggles for a livelihood and who displays courage. The first citation for this comes from Henry Lawson in While the Billy Boils (1896): "I sat on him pretty hard for his pretensions, and paid him out for all the patronage he'd worked off on me... and told him never to pretend to me again he was a battler".
 Bludger – a person who avoids working, or doing their share of work, a loafer, scrounger, a hanger-on, one who does not pull his weight; originally, a pimp.
 Bogan – an Australian term for describing someone who may be a yobbo (redneck). The major difference between the two is that yobbo tends to be used as a noun, whereas bogan can also be used adjectivally to describe objects pertaining to people who are bogans. Regional variations include "Bevan" in and around Brisbane, and "Boonah" around Canberra. It's usually an uncultured person with vulgar behavior, speech, clothing, etc.
 Cooker – a derogatory term for conspiracy theorist; according to the National Dictionary Centre, "a derogatory term for a person involved in protests against vaccine mandates, lockdowns and a range of other issues perceived to be infringing on personal freedom". Emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the word made the shortlist for "Word of the Year" in 2022. The term is also loosely associated with the far right. An explanation of the term given by an Australian in answer to a question on Twitter is that "It refers to soneone(sic) whose brain has been cooked by overexposure to conspiracy theories and unhinged online rhetoric". Former Australian tennis player Pat Cash and former American surfer Kelly Slater were labelled cookers after they exchanged views on Twitter about the concept of the 15-minute city.
 Didgeridoo is a wind instrument that was originally found only in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. It is a long, wooden, tubular instrument that produces a low-pitched, resonant sound with complex, rhythmic patterns but little tonal variation.
 Digger – an Australian soldier. The term was applied during the First World War to Australian and New Zealand soldiers because so much of their time was spent digging trenches. An earlier Australian sense of digger was "a miner digging for gold". Billy Hughes, prime minister during the First World War, was known as the Little Digger. First recorded in this sense 1916.
 Dinkum or fair dinkum – "true", "the truth", "speaking the truth", "authentic" and related meanings, depending on context and inflection. The Evening News (Sydney, NSW) 23 August 1879 has one of the earliest references to fair dinkum. It originated with a now-extinct dialect word from the East Midlands in England, where dinkum (or dincum) meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English.
 Dunny – a privy, toilet or lavatory (from British dunnekin). To many Australians "bathroom" is a room with a bath or shower.
 Fair go – a reasonable chance, a fair deal. Australia often sees itself as an egalitarian society, the land of the fair go, where all citizens have a right to fair treatment.
 Jackaroo – a type of agricultural worker.
 Nasho (plural nashos) – a person undergoing National Service, mandatory military service in Australia. The word is often used for Vietnam War soldiers when conscription became controversial. Since that time, conscription has not been implemented in Australia.
 Nork – a female breast (usually in plural); etymology disputed, but has been linked to Norco, a NSW milk company.
 Outback – a "remote, sparsely-populated area".

Words of Australian Aboriginal origin

Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been incorporated into Australian English, mainly as names for flora and fauna (for example koala, dingo, kangaroo).

Some examples are cooee and yakka. The former is a high-pitched call () which travels long distances and is used to attract attention, which has been derived from Dharug, an Aboriginal language spoken in the Sydney region. Cooee has also become a notional distance: if he's within cooee, we'll spot him. Yakka means work, strenuous labour, and comes from 'yaga' meaning 'work' in the Yagara indigenous language of the Brisbane region. Yakka found its way into nineteenth-century Australian pidgin, and then passed into Australian English. First recorded 1847.

Boomerang is an Australian word which has moved into International English. It was also borrowed from Dharug.

Words of British, Irish or American origin

Many such words, phrases or usages originated with British and Irish settlers to Australia from the 1780s until the present. For example: a creek in Australia (as in North America), is any "stream or small river", whereas in England it is a small watercourse flowing into the sea; paddock is the Australian word for "field", while in England it is a small enclosure for livestock. Bush (as in North America) or scrub means "wooded areas" or "country areas in general" in Australia, while in England they are commonly used only in proper names (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs). Australian English and several British English dialects (e.g., Cockney, Scouse, Geordie) use the word mate to mean a friend, rather than the conventional meaning of "a spouse", although this usage has also become common in some other varieties of English.
 Billy – a tin or enamel cooking pot with a lid and wire handle, used outdoors, especially for making tea. It comes from the Scottish dialect word billy meaning "cooking utensil".
 Fair dinkum – reliable; genuine; honest; true, comes from British dialect. The phrase is recorded in a north Lincolnshire dialect for the first time meaning "fair play" or "fair dealing", although "dinkum" on its own had been used in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, meaning "work" or "punishment". "Fair dinkum" was first used in England in 1881, and is the equivalent of West Yorkshire "fair doos". The word "dinkum" is first recorded in Australia in the 1890s.
 G'day – a greeting, meaning "good day".
 Manchester (frequently lower-case) – household linen (sheets, pillow cases etc.), as in "manchester department" of a department store. From "Manchester wares" with exactly the same meaning.
 Sheila –slang for "woman", derived from the Irish girls' name Síle (, anglicised Sheila).
 Yobbo – an Australian variation on the UK slang yob, meaning someone who is loud, rude and obnoxious, behaves badly, anti-social, and frequently drunk (and prefixed by "drunken").

Rhyming slang
Rhyming slang is more common in older generations though modern examples exist amongst some social groupings.  It is similar, and in some cases identical, to Cockney rhyming slang, for example plates (of meat) for "feet" and china (plate) for "mate". Some specifically Australian examples are dead horse for "sauce", Jack Holt for "salt" (one famous Jack Holt was a horse trainer, another a boxing promoter), Barry Crocker for "shocker" (Crocker is a well-known entertainer). Chunder for "vomit" most likely comes from Chunder Loo = "spew" ("Chunder Loo of Akim Foo" was a Norman Lindsay character; "spew" is synonym for "vomit"). See.

Diminutives and abbreviations
Australian English vocabulary draws heavily on diminutives and abbreviations. These may be confusing to foreign speakers when they are used in everyday conversations.

There are over 5,000 identified diminutives in use. While other English dialects use diminutives in a similar way, none are so prolific or diverse. A large number of these are widely recognised and used by Australian English speakers. However, many are used only by specific demographic groups or in localised areas. Researchers are now beginning to study what psychological motivations cause Australians to abbreviate so many words.

Colloquial phrases

Numerous idiomatic phrases occur in Australian usage, some more historical than contemporary in usage.

Send her down, Hughie is an example of surfie slang. Australian Football League spectators use the term "white maggot" (derived from their formerly white uniforms) towards umpires at games.

Alcohol
Amber is generic term for any beer (lager/stout/ale) in general, but especially cold and on-tap.

Not only has there been a wide variety of measures in which beer is served in pubs in Australia, the names of these glasses differ from one area to another. However, the range of glasses has declined greatly in recent years.

Pre-decimal currency
Prior to decimalization, Australian monetary units closely reflected British usage: four farthings (obsolete by 1945) or two halfpence to a penny; 12 pence to a shilling; 20 shillings to a pound, but terms for the coinage were uniquely Australian, particularly among working-class adult males: "Brown": a penny (1d.); "Tray": threepence (3d.); "Zac": sixpence (6d.); "Bob" or "Deener": a shilling (1s.); "Two bob bit": a florin (2s.)

Slang terms for notes mostly followed British usage: "Ten bob note": ten shillings (10s.); "Quid" (or "fiddly did"): pound note (£1); "Fiver": five pound note (£5); "Tenner" or "Brick": ten pound note (£10). Other terms have been recorded but rarely used outside the racetrack.  One confusing matter is that five shillings prior to decimal currency was called a "Dollar", in reference to the Spanish Dollar and "Holey Dollar" which circulated at a value of five shillings, but the Australian Dollar at the introduction of decimal currency was fixed at 10 shillings.

Sport

Football
Australia has four codes of football, rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football, and Association football. Generally, rugby league is called football in New South Wales and Queensland, while rugby union is called either rugby or union throughout. Both rugby league and rugby union are often collectively referred to as rugby in other states where Australian rules football is called football. Australian rules football is commonly referred to as "Aussie Rules" throughout Australia, but may also in Victoria and South Australia be loosely called "footy" outside the context of the Australian Football League.

Association football was long known as "soccer" in Australia and still persists. In 2005, the governing body changed its name to Football Federation Australia. Association Football in Australia is called "football'" only when mentioned in conjunction with a specific league, such as the A-League or Premier League, otherwise "football" on its own means either Australian football or rugby on its own depending on the region of Australia.

Horse racing
Bookie is, in Australia as elsewhere, a common term for an on-course bookmaker, but "metallician" was once a (semi-humorous or mock-intellectual) common synonym.

Comparison with other varieties
Where British and American vocabulary differs, Australians sometimes favour a usage different from both varieties, as with footpath (for US sidewalk, UK pavement), capsicum (for US bell pepper, UK green/red pepper), or doona (for US comforter, UK duvet) from a trademarked brand. In other instances, it either shares a term with American English, as with truck (UK: lorry) or eggplant (UK: aubergine), or with British English, as with mobile phone (US: cell phone) or bonnet (US: hood).

Terms shared by British and American English but not so commonly found in Australian English include (Australian usage in bold): abroad (overseas); cooler/ice box (Esky); flip-flops (thongs); pickup truck (ute); wildfire (bushfire).

Australian English is particularly divergent from other varieties with respect to geographical terminology, due to the country's unique geography. This is particularly true when comparing with British English, due to that country's dramatically different geography. British geographical terms not in common use in Australia include (Australian usage in bold): coppice (cleared bushland); dell (valley); fen (swamp); heath (shrubland); meadow (grassy plain); moor (swampland); spinney (shrubland); stream (creek); woods (bush) and village (even the smallest settlements in Australia are called towns or stations).

In addition, a number of words in Australian English have different meanings from those ascribed in other varieties of English. Clothing-related examples are notable. Pants in Australian English follows American usage in reference to British English trousers but in British English refer to Australian English underpants; vest in Australian English pass also in American refers to British English waistcoat but in British English refers to Australian English singlet. Thong in both American and British English refers to underwear (known in Australia as a G-string), while in Australian English it refers to British and American English flip-flop (footwear). There are numerous other examples, including biscuit which refers in Australian and British English to what in American English is cookie or cracker but to a savoury cake in American English (though cookie is often used for American-styled biscuits such as chocolate chip cookies); Asian, which in Australian and American English commonly refers to people of East Asian heritage, as opposed to British English, in which it commonly refers to people of South Asian descent; (potato) chips which refers both to British English crisps (which is not used in Australian English) and to American English French fries (which is used alongside hot chips); and football, which in Australian English refers to Australian rules football, Rugby league or Rugby union – what British refer to as football is referred to as soccer and what Americans term football is referred to as gridiron.

In addition to the large number of uniquely Australian idioms in common use, there are instances of idioms taking differing forms in the various Anglophone nations, for example (Australian usage in bold): Home away from home, take with a grain of salt and wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole (which in British English take the respective forms home from home, take with a pinch of salt and wouldn't touch with a barge pole), or a drop in the ocean and touch wood (which in American English take the forms a drop in the bucket and knock on wood).

British and American English terms not widely used in Australian English
There are extensive terms used in other varieties of English which are not widely used in Australian English. These terms usually do not result in Australian English speakers failing to comprehend speakers of other varieties of English, as Australian English speakers will often be familiar with such terms through exposure to media or may ascertain the meaning using context.

Non-exhaustive selections of British English and American English terms not commonly used in Australian English together with their definitions or Australian English equivalents are found in the collapsible table below:

British English terms not widely used in Australian English

 Allotment (gardening): A community garden not connected to a dwelling
 Artic or articulated lorry (vehicle): Australian English semi-trailer)
 Aubergine (vegetable): Australian English eggplant
 Bank holiday: Australian English public holiday
 Barmy: Crazy, mad or insane.
 Bedsit: Australian English studio (apartment)
 Belisha beacon: A flashing light atop a pole used to mark a pedestrian crossing
 Bin lorry: Australian English: garbage truck
 Bobby: A police officer, particularly one of lower rank
 Cagoule: A lightweight raincoat or windsheeter
 Candy floss (confectionery): Australian English fairy floss
 Cash machine: Australian English automatic teller machine
 Chav: Lower socio-economic person comparable to Australian English bogan
 Child-minder: Australian English babysitter
 Chivvy: To hurry (somebody) along. Australian English nag
 Chrimbo: Abbreviation for Christmas comparable to Australian English Chrissy
 Chuffed: To be proud (especially of oneself)
 Cleg (insect): Australian English horsefly
 Clingfilm: A plastic wrap used in food preparation. Australian English Glad wrap/cling wrap
 Community payback: Australian English community service
 Comprehensive school: Australian English state school or public school
 Cooker: A kitchen appliance. Australian English stove and/or oven
 Coppice: An area of cleared woodland
 Council housing: Australian English public housing
 Counterpane: A bed covering. Australian English bedspread
 Courgette: A vegetable. Australian English zucchini
 Creche: Australian English child care centre
 (potato) Crisps: Australian English (potato) chips
 Current account: Australian English transaction account
 Dell: A small secluded hollow or valley
 Do: Australian English party or social gathering
 Doddle: An easy task
 Doss (verb): To spend time idly
 Drawing pin: Australian English thumb tack
 Dungarees: Australian English overalls
 Dustbin: Australian English garbage bin/rubbish bin
 Dustcart: Australian English garbage truck/rubbish truck
 Duvet: Australian English doona
 Elastoplast or plaster: An adhesive used to cover small wounds. Australian English band-aid
 Electrical lead: Australian English electrical cord
 Estate car: Australian English station wagon
 Fairy cake: Australian English cupcake
 Father Christmas: Australian English Santa Claus
 Fen: A low and frequently flooded area of land, similar to Australian English swamp
 Free phone: Australian English toll-free
 Gammon: Meat from the hind leg of pork. Australian English makes no distinction between gammon and ham
 Git: A foolish person. Equivalent to idiot or moron
 Goose pimples: Australian English goose bumps
 Hacked off: To be irritated or upset, often with a person
 Hairgrip: Australian English hairpin or bobbypin
 Half-term: Australian English school holiday
 Haulier: Australian English hauler
 Heath: An area of dry grass or shrubs, similar to Australian English shrubland
 Hoover(verb): Australian English to vacuum
 Horsebox: Australian English horse float
 Ice lolly: Australian English ice block or icy pole
 Juicy bits: Small pieces of fruit residue found in fruit juice. Australian English pulp
 Kip: To sleep
 Kitchen roll: Australian English paper towel
 Landslip: Australian English landslide
 Lavatory: Australian English toilet (lavatory is used in Australian English for toilets on aeroplanes)
 Lido: A public swimming pool
 Lorry: Australian English truck
 Loudhailer: Australian English megaphone
 Mackintosh or mac: Australian English raincoat
 Mangetout: Australian English snow pea
 Marrow: Australian English squash
 Minidish: A satellite dish for domestic (especially television) use
 Moggie: A domestic short-haired cat
 Moor: A low area prone to flooding, similar to Australian English swampland
 Nettled: Irritated (especially with somebody)
 Nosh: A meal or spread of food
 Off-licence: Australian English bottle shop/Bottle-o
 Pak choi: Australian English bok choy
 Pavement: Australian English footpath
 Pelican crossing: Australian English pedestrian crossing or zebra crossing
 Peaky: Unwell or sickly
 (red or green) Pepper (vegetable): Australian English capsicum
 People carrier (vehicle): Australian English people mover
 Pikey: An itinerant person. Similar to Australian English tramp
 Pillar box: Australian English post box
 Pillock: A mildly offensive term for a foolish or obnoxious person, similar to idiot or moron. Also refers to male genetalia
 Plimsoll (footwear): Australian English sandshoe
 Pneumatic drill: Australian English jackhammer
 Polo neck (garment): Australian English skivvy
 Poorly: Unwell or sick
 Press-up (exercise): Australian English push-up
 Pushchair: A wheeled cart for pushing a baby. Australian English: stroller or pram
 Pusher: A wheeled cart for pushing a baby. Australian English: stroller or pram
 Rodgering: A mildly offensive term for sexual intercourse, similar to Australian English rooting
 Saloon (car): Australian English sedan
 Scratchings (food): Solid material left after rendering animal (especially pork) fat. Australian English crackling)
 Sellotape: Australian English sticky tape
 Shan't: Australian English will not
 Skive (verb): To play truant, particularly from an educational institution. Australian English to wag
 Sleeping policeman: Australian English speed hump or speed bump
 Snog (verb): To kiss passionately, equivalent to Australian English pash
 Sod: A mildly offensive term for an unpleasant person
 Spinney: A small area of trees and bushes
 Strimmer: Australian English whipper snipper or line trimmer
 Swan (verb): To move from one plact to another ostentatiously
 Sweets: Australian English lollies
 Tailback: A long queue of stationary or slow-moving traffic
 Tangerine: Australian English mandarin
 Tipp-Ex: Australian English white out or liquid paper
 Trainers: Athletic footwear. Australian English runners or sneakers
 Turning (noun): Where one road branches from another. Australian English turn
 Utility room: A room containing washing or other home appliances, similar to Australian English laundry
 Value-added tax (VAT): Australian English goods and services tax (GST)
 Wellington boots: Australian English gumboots
 White spirit: Australian English turpentine

American English terms not widely used in Australian English

 Acclimate: Australian English acclimatise
 Airplane: Australian English aeroplane
 Aluminum: Australian English aluminium
 Baby carriage: Australian English stroller or pram
 Bangs: A hair style. Australian English fringe
 Baseboard (architecture): Australian English skirting board
 Bayou: Australian English swamp/billabong
 Bell pepper: Australian English capsicum
 Bellhop: Australian English hotel porter
 Beltway: Australian English ring road
 Boondocks: An isolated, rural area. Australian English the sticks or Woop Woop or Beyond the black stump
 Broil (cooking technique): Australian English grill
 Bullhorn: Australian English megaphone
 Burglarize: Australian English burgle
 Busboy: A subclass of (restaurant) waiter
 Candy: Australian English lollies
 Cellular phone: Australian English mobile phone
 Check: (To mean a restaurant bill). Australian English bill
 Cilantro: Australian English coriander
 Comforter: Australian English doona
 Condominium: Australian English apartment
 Counter-clockwise: Australian English anticlockwise
 Coveralls: Australian English overalls
 Crapshoot: A risky venture
 Diaper: Australian English nappy
 Downtown: Australian English central business district
 Drapes: Australian English curtains
 Drugstore: Australian English pharmacy or chemist
 Drywall: Australian English plasterboard
 Dumpster: Australian English skip bin
 Dweeb: Australian English nerd
 Eraser: Australian English rubber
 Fall (season): Australian English autumn
 Fanny pack: Australian English bum bag
 Faucet: Australian English tap
 Flashlight: Australian English torch
 Freshman: A first year student at a highschool or university
 Frosting (cookery): Australian English icing
 Gasoline: Australian English petrol
 Gas pedal: Australian English accelerator
 Gas Station: Australian English service station or petrol station
 Glove compartment: Australian English glovebox
 Golden raisin: Australian English sultana
 Grifter: Australian English con artist
 Ground beef: Australian English minced beef or mince
 Hood (vehicle): Australian English bonnet
 Hot tub: Australian English spa or spa bath
 Jell-o: Australian English jelly
 Ladybug: Australian English ladybird
 Mail-man: Australian English postman or postie
 Mass transit: Australian English public transport
 Math: Australian English maths
 Mineral spirits: Australian English turpentine
 Nightstand: Australian English bedside table
 Obligated: Australian English obliged
 Out-of-state: Australian English interstate
 Pacifier: Australian English dummy
 Parking lot: Australian English car park
 Penitentiary: Australian English prison or jail
 Period(punctuation): Australian English full stop
 Play hooky (verb): To play truant from an educational institution. Equivalent to Australian English (to) wag
 Popsicle: Australian English ice block or icy pole
 Railroad: Australian English railway
 Railroad ties: Australian English Railway sleepers
 Rappel: Australian English abseil
 Realtor: Australian English real estate agent
 Root (sport): To enthusiastically support a sporting team. Equivalent to Australian English barrack
 Row house: Australian English terrace house
 Sales tax: Australian English goods and services tax (GST)
 Saran wrap: Australian English plastic wrap or cling wrap
 Scad: Australian English a large quantity
 Scallion: Australian English spring onion
 Sharpie (pen): Australian English permanent marker or texta or felt pen
 Shopping cart: Australian English shopping trolley
 Sidewalk: Australian English footpath
 Silverware or flatware: Australian English cutlery
 Soda pop: Australian English soft drink
 Streetcar: Australian English tram
 Sweater: Garment. Australian English jumper
 Sweatpants: Australian English tracksuit pants/trackies
 Tailpipe: Australian English exhaust pipe
 Takeout: Australian English takeaway
 Trash can: Australian English garbage bin or rubbish bin
 Trunk (vehicle): Australian English boot
 Turn signal: Australian English indicator
 Turtleneck: Australian English skivvy
 Upscale and downscale: Australian English upmarket and downmarket
 Vacation: Australian English holiday
 Windshield: Australian English windscreen

See also
Australian English
Australian comedy
Diminutives in Australian English
List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin
List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin
List of Australian plants termed "native"
Strine

Notes

Further reading
 Hornadge, Bill.(1989) The Australian slanguage: a look at what we say and how we say it (foreword by Spike Milligan). Richmond, Vic: Mandarin

External links

Aussie English, The Illustrated Dictionary of Australian English
Macquarie Dictionary

Australian English
Languages of Australia
Lexis (linguistics)

Australian English vocabulary


KC Athletics is an American amateur soccer team based in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. Founded in 2001, the team plays in Region II of the United States Adult Soccer Association, a network of amateur leagues at the fifth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid.

The team's colors are white and sky blue.

History
Founded in 2001 as a merger of the Kansas Legends Soccer Club and the Kansas City Football Club, the KC Athletics won regionals in its first year competing in the Snickers Nationals, and ended up finishing third nationally in the competition. The following year, their Under-20 team won a national championship, but then the club went on hiatus with many of the players joining nearby PDL clubs like the Des Moines Menace and the Kansas City Brass. In 2004, the KC Athletics were reborn.

The Athletics entered the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup for the first time in 2010, and qualified for the tournament at the first attempt, beating USOC mainstays AAC Eagles 5-3 on penalties in their final qualification game. They lost in the first round of the tournament proper, 4-2 to USSF Division 2 Professional League side NSC Minnesota Stars. The Athletics' goals were scored by Stephen Hoffman and Kyle Perkins.

On April 14, 2012, the Athletics traveled to Chicago to play in the "Win and You're In" Region II Qualification match to earn a berth in the 2012 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.  The Athletics defeated the Cincy Saints 10-2 to qualify for their second U.S. Open Cup berth since 2010.

Players

2012 USASA roster

Year-by-year

Head coaches
  Kyle Perkins (2009–present)

Stadia

References

External links

2001 establishments in Missouri

KC Athletics


A. P. and Sara Carter House is a historic home located at Maces Spring, Scott County, Virginia. The original one-story, frame dwelling was enlarged by an additional 1/2-story for more bedroom space in the 1920s–1930s. The remodeling resulted in a vernacular interpretation of the popular Bungalow style. The house is most notable for its association with the Carter Family, a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956.  It was the home of Alvin Pleasant "A.P." Delaney Carter (1891–1960) and his wife Sara Dougherty Carter (1898–1979).

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

References

Cash–Carter family residences
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Houses in Scott County, Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Scott County, Virginia

A. P. and Sara Carter House


Frederick Stanley McGriff (born October 31, 1963) is an American former first baseman in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for six teams from 1986 through 2004. He was one of the most consistently productive powers hitters of the 1990s, posting over 80 runs batted in (RBI) every year from 1988 through 2002, and became the first player since the dead-ball era to lead both leagues in home runs — the American League (AL) in 1989 and the National League (NL) in 1992. A five-time All-Star, he was named the Most Valuable Player of the 1994 contest after his pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth inning tied the score at 7–7, with the NL winning in 10 innings. McGriff finished in the top ten in voting for his league's Most Valuable Player Award every year from 1989 through 1994, during which time he led the major leagues in home runs.

After spending the first third of his career with the Toronto Blue Jays and San Diego Padres, McGriff became a major component in the Atlanta Braves' long run of division champions, posting over 90 RBI for five straight years after joining the club in a midseason 1993 trade, and helped lead the team to the 1995 World Series title over the Cleveland Indians. In 50 career postseason games, McGriff batted .303 with 10 home runs and 37 RBI. He then joined his hometown Tampa Bay Devil Rays when that club was established in 1998, and was the team's main power hitter for its first four seasons, establishing various franchise records which lasted several years before being broken. He hit 20 or more home runs fifteen times, becoming the first player to hit 30 home runs with five different teams, drove in 100 runs eight times, and batted .300 four times.

McGriff's 493 career home runs were tied for tenth in major league history among left-handed hitters when he retired, and put him only seven away from joining the 500 home run club; his 462 home runs as a first baseman ranked fourth. He also ended his career with 1,550 RBI, and a .509 slugging percentage. One of the most durable first basemen in history, he ranked third in career games at first base (2,239), ninth in assists (1,447) and third in double plays (1,775). His nickname "Crime Dog", a word play on McGruff the Crime Dog, was coined by Marty Barrett and popularized by Chris Berman. McGriff currently works in the Braves' front office as Special Assistant to Baseball Operations. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 23, .

Early life
McGriff was born in Tampa, Florida. His mother, Eliza, was a schoolteacher and his father, Earl, was an electronics repairman. As a child, he hung out at Al Lopez Field during Cincinnati Reds spring training and worked as a vendor at Tampa Stadium.

McGriff went out for the baseball team at Jefferson High School as a sophomore but was cut. He made the team the following year after undergoing a growth spurt. He was a high school teammate of Al Pardo. He first attracted the attention of professional ball clubs after hitting a long home run off of Hillsborough High School's Dwight Gooden with scouts in attendance to watch Gooden pitch. McGriff accepted a scholarship offer to play college baseball for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Professional career

Draft and minor leagues (1981–1985)
McGriff signed with the New York Yankees after being selected in the 9th round of the 1981 amateur draft. He received a $20,000 signing bonus. In 1982, the Yankees dealt McGriff, Dave Collins and Mike Morgan to the Toronto Blue Jays for Dale Murray and Tom Dodd. The trade is now considered one of the most one-sided deals in baseball history; in 2006, Rob Neyer wrote that the trade looked particularly lopsided because it was one of the few instances that a player of McGriff's stature was traded before getting to the majors.

At the time, the trade appeared to make some sense from the Yankees' perspective, since McGriff was blocked from first base by Don Mattingly. Nonetheless, the Yankees didn't get nearly enough in return. Murray won only three games in three years with the Yankees, and was out of baseball by 1986. Dodd was released at the end of the season, and apart from a month with the Baltimore Orioles in 1986 spent the remainder of his career in the minors. Before McGriff became a regular major leaguer, baseball great Ted Williams took note of his power at a batting practice session during spring training. Williams was drawn to McGriff when he heard the sound of the ball leaving McGriff's bat.

Toronto Blue Jays (1986–1990)
McGriff played two innings at first base on May 17, 1986, and the next day started his first career game as the designated hitter. His first at-bat was in the bottom of the second inning against Don Schulze, during which he hit a line drive to left field for his first career hit. McGriff played in only one more MLB game that season.

McGriff reached the majors full-time in 1987, and hit 34 home runs the next year, his first of seven consecutive seasons with over 30 homers. He emerged as the top power hitter in the American League in 1989, leading the league with 36 home runs, including the first home run hit at the SkyDome, helping the Blue Jays win the AL East division title. His power numbers remained steady in 1990, as McGriff batted .300 and established himself as a consistent producer.

San Diego Padres (1990–1993)
On December 5, 1990, the Blue Jays traded McGriff and Tony Fernández to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.

His numbers remained consistent in the National League, where he hit .278/.396/.474 for San Diego in 1991. He made his first All-Star appearance the following year and led the NL in home runs in 1992, three years after he had accomplished the same feat in the AL.

Atlanta Braves (1993–1997)
On July 18, 1993, the Padres, out of contention and seeking to unload their high-priced veterans, dealt McGriff to the Atlanta Braves for prospect Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott and Melvin Nieves. McGriff hit a home run in his first game with the Braves, who acquired him to replace the struggling Sid Bream at first and to provide an offensive spark, and was a key player in the Braves' 51–19 finish to overtake the San Francisco Giants and claim first place in the National League West for a third consecutive season. He finished with a career high 37 homers and fourth place in the NL MVP voting.

In the strike-shortened 1994 season, McGriff was batting .318 and had 34 home runs when play ended in August 1994. He won the All-Star Game MVP Award that year after hitting the game-tying home run for the National League, after the NL trailed, 7–5, in the bottom of the ninth inning. McGriff was runner-up to Ken Griffey Jr. in the 1994 Home Run Derby.

McGriff remained with the Braves in 1995 and continued to be a successful cleanup hitter. He hit two home runs in the 1995 World Series en route to his only World Series championship ring.

A free agent after the 1995 season, McGriff signed a four-year contract worth $20 million with the Braves. McGriff hit .295/.365/.494 with a career-best 107 RBIs on his way to another World Series appearance in 1996. McGriff hit 22 home runs in the 1997 season. He was called out on strikes by umpire Eric Gregg on a pitch thrown by Liván Hernández during the 1997 NLCS, which was the last significant event for McGriff as a member of the Braves. The team allowed him to be picked up by the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays after the season.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1998–2001)
The Braves did not protect McGriff in the 1997 expansion draft after the season, and he was not selected. The Braves traded McGriff to the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a player to be named later after the draft.

McGriff batted .278 with nineteen home runs in his first season with the Devil Rays. His numbers experienced a minor renaissance in 1999 when he hit .310 with 32 home runs the following season.

Chicago Cubs (2001–2002)
After another solid season in 2000, McGriff got off to a good start in 2001 and was heavily pursued by the contending Chicago Cubs around the trade deadline. He waived his no-trade clause to allow himself to be dealt to Chicago on July 27, 2001, for Manny Aybar and a player to be named later. He hit .282 with twelve homers in 49 games with the Cubs, but the team did not reach the postseason.

Los Angeles Dodgers (2003)
McGriff had thirty home runs during a strong 2002 campaign, which earned him a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2003 season. Twenty-two homers shy of 500 for his career, the forty-year-old McGriff only hit thirteen with a .249 batting average and spent a significant amount of time on the disabled list.

Return to the Devil Rays (2004)
During spring training in 2004, the Devil Rays re-signed McGriff. He ended up with a .181 average and had hit just two home runs in his sporadic play from the end of May until mid-July. The Devil Rays released McGriff on July 28, 2004, seven home runs shy of 500.

McGriff worked out for the New York Yankees three days after his release from Tampa Bay but the team ultimately didn't sign him. McGriff officially declared his retirement during spring training of 2005 when he received no calls from any teams requesting his services.

Post-playing career
In January 2007, McGriff joined the Devil Rays as a special adviser. He stayed with the Rays until 2010. McGriff joined the Braves as a special assistant to the baseball operations department in 2015, working with their minor league players.

Legacy
McGriff ended his career with ten seasons with at least thirty home runs. He and Gary Sheffield are the only players ever to hit at least thirty home runs in one season for five different teams, with McGriff accomplishing the feat with Toronto three times, San Diego twice, and Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and the Chicago Cubs once each. He led MLB in total home runs hit from 1989 to 1994, and hit the third-most home runs in the decade from 1988 to 1997 (after Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire). During the latter period, he was eighth in the majors in the fWAR statistic (Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs), behind six Hall of Famers and Bonds.

As of 2019, McGriff stood as one of only 16 players to record a career .280 batting average, .375 on-base percentage, and .500 slugging percentage along with at least 490 home runs.

He became eligible for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010. In his first year of eligibility, he was named on 21.5% of the ballots cast by 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA); this fell short of the 75% requirement for induction, but surpassed the 5.0% threshold for continued eligibility on future BBWAA ballots. Over the next four elections, McGriff's vote percentage ranged from a high of 23.9% (137 votes) in 2012 to a low of 11.7% (67 votes) in 2014. He remained eligible through 2019, when his time on the ballot expired after ten unsuccessful appearances. On his final ballot, McGriff achieved his highest vote total ever of 39.8% (169 votes), still short of the necessary 75%.

On December 4, 2022, it was announced that McGriff was unanimously elected by the Contemporary Era Committee to the Baseball Hall of Fame. McGriff and Scott Rolen were formally inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 23, 2023.

Personal life
McGriff married Veronica in 1988. The couple raised two children. McGriff lived in a custom-built home in Tampa from the mid-1990s to 2019, when it was sold.

McGriff's father Earl died of cancer in November 1999. His mother died in 2017.

McGriff appeared in commercials for Tom Emanski's Baseball Fundamentals training videos in 1991. The commercials ran for over a decade on ESPN, making them the longest running sports infomercial on television.

See also

 List of Major League Baseball home run records
 List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
 List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
 List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders

References

External links

1963 births
Living people
Major League Baseball first basemen
Atlanta Braves players
Toronto Blue Jays players
Tampa Bay Devil Rays players
San Diego Padres players
Chicago Cubs players
Los Angeles Dodgers players
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
American League All-Stars
National League All-Stars
Major League Baseball All-Star Game MVPs
American League home run champions
National League home run champions
Silver Slugger Award winners
African-American baseball players
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Baseball players from Atlanta
Baseball players from St. Petersburg, Florida
Baseball players from Tampa, Florida
Durham Bulls players
Florence Blue Jays players
Gulf Coast Dodgers players
Gulf Coast Yankees players
Kinston Blue Jays players
Knoxville Blue Jays players
Syracuse Chiefs players
Vero Beach Dodgers players
Tampa Bay Rays executives
Atlanta Braves scouts
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people
Thomas Jefferson High School (Tampa, Florida) alumni

Fred McGriff


Gauged supergravity is a supergravity theory in which some R-symmetry is gauged such that the gravitinos (superpartners of the graviton) are charged with respect to the gauge fields. Consistency of the supersymmetry transformation often requires
the presence of the potential for the scalar fields of the theory, or the cosmological constant if the theory
contains no scalar degree of freedom. The gauged supergravity often has the anti-de Sitter space as a supersymmetric vacuum.
Notable exception is a six-dimensional N=(1,0) gauged supergravity.

"Gauged supergravity" in this sense should be contrasted with Yang–Mills–Einstein supergravity in which some other would-be global symmetries of the theory are gauged and fields other than the gravitinos are charged with respect to the gauge fields.

See also
 Velo–Zwanziger problem

Supersymmetry
Theory of relativity
Quantum gravity

Gauged supergravity


Annette Abigael Hamilton (1806–1879) born Palm was a Norwegian fairy-tale collector and author.
She was born in Fredrikshald (Halden) and was the daughter of captain Hans Christian Palm and Anne Samuelsen.
She married captain Wilhelm Hamilton who also was a publisher.
She was also an actress at the dramatic society of Halden.

Hamilton was an eager participant in the dramatic society in Fredrikshald (Halden) and in 1847 her fairy tale collection was published by her husband's publishing company.
The book was published in 1847 at a time when the dramatic society was active.
As a fairy-tale author she is counted as one of the Norwegian pioneers of this literary genre.
Her pen name was Abigail and a pseudonym for A. A. Hamilton.

The fairy-tale collection was called Abigaels Eventyr og Sagn. Gave for Børn (Abigaels Fairy Tales and Legends. Gift for Children.).
It is one of the first fairy-tale collections in Norway.
The book was sold by J. W. Cappelen.
Several of the fairy-tales are Norwegian folk tales and the tale on page 34 is classified as AA-TH types 1525R-1653B.
The tale on page 24-29 is classified as AA-TH type 513 which in English is called The Land and Water Ship.
The collection is built on models found outside Norway at the time.
Some of the tales are strongly edited and some are her literary creations.
Numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are fairy-tales, 7 is loose motifs from legends and folk tales and nr 8-12 are supposed to be her literary creations.

Bibliography
Abigaels Eventyr og Sagn. Gave for Børn. Frederikshald, Hamilton, 1847.

References

Norwegian children's writers
Collectors of fairy tales
Norwegian writers
People from Halden
1806 births
1879 deaths

Annette Abigael Hamilton


Todpool is a hamlet in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is located between Chacewater and St Day villages and is three miles (5 km) east of Redruth.

During the 19th century, Todpool was an important site for tin mining due to its proximity to Poldice mine. Today, disused mineshafts and derelict engine houses are scattered throughout the area. Todpool was once busy enough to support a pub (now a private house) and a church, but is now a quiet backwater of miners' cottages.

The road that runs through Todpool is Bownder An Sycamor, which translates from Cornish as Sycamore Lane.

References

External links

Hamlets in Cornwall

Todpool


Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., 776 F. Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), was a 1991 court decision in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York which held that Internet service providers were subject to traditional defamation law for their hosted content.  The case resolved a claim of libel against CompuServe, an Internet service provider that hosted allegedly defamatory content in one of its forums.  The case established a precedent for Internet service provider liability by applying defamation law, originally intended for hard copies of written works, to the Internet medium.  The court held that although CompuServe did host defamatory content on its forums, CompuServe was merely a distributor, rather than a publisher, of the content.  As a distributor, CompuServe could only be held liable for defamation if it knew, or had reason to know, of the defamatory nature of the content.  As CompuServe had made no effort to review the large volume of content on its forums, it could not be held liable for the defamatory content.

The application of traditional defamation law to the Internet context was soon to create controversy in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., in which a service provider was found liable for defamation on the grounds of good-faith attempts to filter objectionable content.  In 1996, service providers were granted immunity as publishers and distributors by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as an incentive to moderate posted material.

Facts
Cubby, Inc. and Robert Blanchard brought suit against CompuServe Inc. in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York in 1991 for libel, business disparagement, and unfair competition.

CompuServe, an Internet service provider, hosted an online news forum, the contents of which were generated by a contractor.  Cameron Communications, Inc. agreed to "manage, review, create, delete, edit, and otherwise control the contents" of certain forums.  Cameron Communications then subcontracted the production of Rumorville USA, a daily newsletter.

In April 1990, Rumorville published defamatory content about a competing online newsletter developed by Blanchard and Cubby, Inc.  CompuServe did not dispute the defamatory nature of the content.  However, no evidence presented during the trial demonstrated that CompuServe knew, or should have known, of the existence of the defamatory content.

Legal proceedings
Given the established facts, the court determined that a trial was unnecessary and granted summary judgment in favor of CompuServe for all claims.

Libel claim
Cubby alleged that CompuServe was the publisher of the defamatory statements.  A "publisher," in the context of defamation law, is one who publishes or otherwise republishes content.  According to federal law and in agreement with New York state law, a publisher who repeats or republishes defamatory content has the same liability as the original publisher of the content.

CompuServe maintained that it was merely a distributor of the published statements.  Distributors of defamatory content can only be held liable if they knew, or had reason to know, of the defamatory nature of the content.  The court held that "CompuServe has no more editorial control over such a publication [as Rumorville] than does a public library, book store, or newsstand, and it would be no more feasible for CompuServe to examine every publication it carries for potentially defamatory statements than it would be for any other distributor to do so."

Business disparagement and unfair competition claims
Both the business disparagement claim, which was viewed as trade libel, and the unfair competition claim, based on disparaging remarks, required that CompuServe knew or had reason to know of the defamatory remarks.  Again, CompuServe was unaware of the nature of the statements and was thus not held liable.

Impact
Cubby v. CompuServe treated internet intermediaries lacking editorial involvement as distributors, rather than publishers, in the context of defamation law.  This decision removed any legal incentive for intermediaries to monitor or screen the content published on their domains.

In 1995, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. further clarified Internet service providers' liabilities.  Because Prodigy filtered and occasionally removed offensive content from bulletin boards that it hosted, the court held that Prodigy was a publisher of, and therefore liable for, published defamatory content.  As these decisions were not appealed to higher level courts, they were not mandatory precedent.  However, the incentive was clear: Internet service providers that chose to remain ignorant of their content were immune from liability, while those that edited content, even in good faith, assumed full publisher liability.

In 1996, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act granted Internet service providers immunity from liability for content provided by others, with certain exceptions.  Section 230 distinguishes between interactive computer services, e.g. Internet service providers, and information content providers, e.g. users who post messages in forums.  Interactive computer services are not considered publishers of content from information content providers and cannot be held liable on account of "Good Samaritan" attempts to filter objectionable content.

References

External links
Wikipedia obtains immunity from defamation under CDA § 230
University of Melbourne Publication Series on Internet Law
 Blog on the development of Internet defamation law by Nissenbaum Law Group, LLC.

CompuServe
United States Internet case law
United States Free Speech Clause case law
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York cases
United States defamation case law
1991 in United States case law

Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc.


Douglas Morey Ford (1851 – 12 May 1916) was an English lawyer and novelist who is best known for his two late works of speculative fiction, A Time of Terror (1906) that dealt with anarchist attacks on the British government, and The Raid of Dover (1910) which imagined the rule of Britain by women accompanied by invasion and natural disasters.

Early life and family
Douglas Morey Ford was born in 1851 in Portsmouth, the son of the businessman and solicitor Richard William Ford and his wife Emma.

His siblings were Charles (Lt. Col. 1845–1918), Archibald Henry (Architect, 1846–1930), Harriett (1847–1903), Annie Emma (1849), Richard McArthur (1850–1851), Edward Carrington (1853–1854), Arthur Vernon (Physician, 1854–1918), Emma Beatrice (1856–?) and Richard William (Gen. Kt. 1857–1925).

He married Honor Blanche Barnard in 1876. Honor was known for her interest in spiritualism and the writer Arthur Conan Doyle, physician in Portsmouth and creator of Sherlock Holmes, may have attended a séance at Ford's house around 1885. In 1901 the family were living in Croydon and Ford and his wife had two sons and seven daughters. They employed a governess and two servants.

Career

Ford entered the legal profession and wrote a number of legal textbooks. He also wrote novels and two works of speculative fiction, A Time of Terror: The Story of a Great Revenge (A.D. 1910) (1906) and The Raid of Dover: A Romance of the Reign of Woman: A.D. 1940 (1910).

In A Time of Terror, a group of anarchists known as the League of London fight the British government and only fail to overthrow the government due to the outbreak of war with Germany. Lyman Tower Sargent described the novel as containing themes of the corruption of the legal system, anti-socialism, and anti-women's rights. In The Raid of Dover, Britain is ruled by women and is invaded by Germany which is accompanied by natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Death
Ford died at Tutshill, Chepstow, on 12 May 1916. His address at the time of his death was Clarence House, Tunbridge Wells. Probate was granted to Dorothy Christian Thompson, wife of Cecil Charles Brandon Thompson, on an estate of £455.

Selected publications

Legal
 Solicitors as Advocates: Practical Suggestions in Connection with Proceedings Before Stipendiary Magistrates and Justices of the Peace, Actions in County Courts, Coroner's Inquests, Courts-martial, Etc. With Observations on the Law and Practice in the Above Courts. Shaw and Sons, London, 1881.
 Matrimonial Law, and the Guardianship of Infants: comprising the Matrimonial Causes Acts, 1857 to 1884; ... also the Married Women (maintenance in case of desertion) Act, 1886; and the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1886, with the Rules of Court (1887) and explanatory notes. W. Clowes & Sons, London, 1888.
 The Law of Briefs and Manual of Forensic Fees. 3rd edition. King, Sell & Olding, London, [1904]. Introduction by James Andrew Strahan (1858–1930).

Novels
 Old as the Hills: A Novel. Tinsley Brothers, London, 1871.
 Kate Savage: A Novel. Charing Cross Publishing Co., London, 1873.
 Martindale's Money (serialized in St. James's Magazine in 1878)
 A Time of Terror: The Story of a Great Revenge (A.D. 1910). Greening & Co., London, 1906. Reprinted as A Time of Terror: The Story of a Great Revenge (A.D. 1912) by Hurst & Blackett, London, 1908.
 The Raid of Dover: A Romance of the Reign of Woman: A.D. 1940. King, Sell, & Olding, London, 1910.

See also
 Invasion literature

References

External links

1851 births
1916 deaths
Writers from Portsmouth
English novelists
English speculative fiction writers
19th-century English lawyers

Douglas Morey Ford


Nudo de los Pastos, in English meaning "Knot of the Pastos" or also known as the "Massif of Huaca",  is an Andean orographic complex located in the Ecuadorian province of Carchi and the Colombian department of Nariño. It covers the intricate mountain region where the Andes splits into two branches on entering Colombia: the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central.

Although there is no precise definition of the region of Nudos de los Pastos, it is generally considered to begin north of the rivers Chota and Apaqui and east of the rivers Cuasmal and Bishop and extends to the Sickle of Minamá in the Cordillera Occidental and to the Colombian Massif in the Cordillera Central, where this gives rise to the Cordillera Oriental.

In the Cordillera Occidental the taller heights are the volcanoes Chile (4,718 m), Cumbal (4,764 m) and Azufral (4,070 m). The Minamá Sickle is a deep depression created when the Patia River crosses the Cordillera Occidental on its way to the Pacific coast Nariño.

In the Cordillera Central there are the highlands Túquerres and Ipiales, Atriz Valley, volcanoes Galeras (4276 m) and Doña Juana (4,250 m), and the town of San Juan de Pasto and Cocha lagoon.

Gallery

See also

 Pasto

References

Andes
Geography of Ecuador
Geography of Nariño Department
Highlands

Nudo de los Pastos