Sultan Ibrahim Njoya (Bamum: , Iparəim Nʃuɔiya, formerly spelled in Bamum as  , and Germanicized as Njoja)  in Yaoundé, was seventeenth in a long dynasty of kings that ruled over Bamum and its people in western Cameroon dating back to the fourteenth century, and  Neographer having invented the Bamum syllabary. He succeeded his father Nsangu, and ruled from 1886 or 1887 until his death in 1933, when he was succeeded by his son, Seidou Njimoluh Njoya. He ruled from the ancient walled city of Fumban.

Person and life

When Njoya was born, the Kingdom of Bamum was in external conflict with the Fulani and internal division amongst the royal family. His father, King Nsangu, was known in the region as a war wager and ultimately died in a battle against the Nso in 1888. Njoya's mother acted as regent and ruled the kingdom until he came of age and could ascend the throne in 1895.

Njoya descended from a very long dynastic line that goes back to Mfon Ncharé who founded Bamum in the year 1394. Ncharé was the son of the Tikar royals princess Yen and Mforifum also called Mvétam. Yen was a direct descendant of Prince Mbum of Ngan Ha as well as Essedi, a merchant who according to Njoya's historical written testimony was an Egyptian.
 Genealogical analysis shows that Essedi the patriarch of Bamum was the great grandson of Ajara who is the founder of the Mandara lineage. Numerous scholars have interpreted this literary narrative as a historical inference speaking to the roots of the Bamum and Tikar along the Nile River in what is now Sudan.
Njoya also detailed a long history of political skirmishes between the Bamileke and Bamum. As a result of the military expeditions of Njoya's ancestor Ncharé, the founder of the Bamum, the majority of modern Bamiléké people have paternal ancestors who are Bamum. A study by Bird et al which analyzed Central African populations shows that the Bamun and the Bamileke have the lowest inferred within-group IBD sharing. This indicates a lack of endogamy. The Kingdom of Bamun was reported to be the largest in the Grassfields and known for both fighting and trading with neighboring groups. These interactions may have acted to reduce genetic isolation in the Bamun. The study also found Egyptian component in the ancestry of modern Grassfields populations in Cameroon.

Colonel Gorges of the British Army, who met Njoya in 1914, described him thus as "a fine upstanding man." He practised polygamy — Gorges reported that he had 600 wives and 149 children by 1915; it is thought that he had 177 children in all. In two other sources such as Images from Bamum
German Colonial Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Cameroon, West Africa, 1902-1915 by Christraud M. Geary as well as a text by Kristian Kristiansen and Michael Rowlands cite that he had 1200 wives and concubines and 350 children in total.

Under the influence of a German missionary, Njoya converted to Christianity. He later created a new syncretistic religion based on Christianity and traditional Bamum religion before converting to Islam along with much of his court in 1916. He accepted the authority of the Sokoto Caliph, requesting the caliph send him an emir's flag and Muslim teachers.

Rule

Njoya's mother, Njapdunke, acted as regent until he reached majority. His official rule was further delayed because his father's head was held by an old adversary, the Nso people. (By tradition the head or skull of an ancestor is of ceremonial importance to the Bamum.) The Germans helped him in recovering the head and this, along with their allowing him relative independence, caused him to have generally good relations with them.

German legal scholar Christian Bommarius has refuted the claim that Mfon Njoya betrayed Rudolph Manga Bell's resistance proposal against the Germans. This claim originated from German colonial officials who sought to incriminate Manga Bell for resisting their attempts to seize Duala land.

He greeted the Germans with great celebrations in his residence in Foumban , which soon brought him the title of an official figure-holder of the German colonial government. King Njoya tried to maintain a good relationship with the German Empire during his lifetime. On the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II, he had given him the throne from the governor of Buea. This put Njoya in the Kaiser's favor, and enabled Felix von Luschan, director of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, to exhibit the throne, which had been imprinted with dyed pearls in great skill. To this day the throne can still be seen in the Berlin Ethnological Museum. In return Wilhelm II sent for, as he put it, his königlichen Bruder (royal brother), a German Cuirassier uniform of the German Imperial Guard. Like an oil painting of Wilhelm II, the uniform is now exhibited in the Palace Museum at Foumban.

Njoya set up schools in which the Bamun children extended their knowledge of their mother tongue, learned the Bamun script introduced by Njoya, and also passed on basic knowledge of the German language.

Col. Gorges noted in 1914 that he held court or durbar daily outside the gatehouse for the dispensing of justice and receipt of tribute, and that all his people had access to him. There was a very well-defined code of court etiquette observed:"Any courtier wishing to speak to him assumes a cringing attitude, removes his skull-cap, clasps his hands and, taking a chukker round behind the presence, finally arrives at the royal elbow. Here he averts his head and makes his request in a hoarse whisper. When the king coughs or clears his throat everyone present softly claps his hands."

According to historian Stephanie Michel the relationship between the Bamum and the Germans is complex and does not neatly fit into a simplistic Afrika-Europe, metropolis-periphery dichotomy. Njoya was not a subordinate in his dealings with the Germans. According to History and Customs of the Bamum:

"The Germans did good to him Njoya.  They leave him all the power to govern all the country of Bamum.  As long as he governed the country, there was no disorder either among the whites or among the Bamum."The maintenance Bamum political autonomy and independence was a quintessential element of the dealings between Njoya and the Germans. Njoya did this by using poses, symbols, and styles that he had come to know in the contact zone and that he had applied to his Bamum regalia. Here all of the highest symbols reserved by whites were taken over by Afrikans. This represented an insecurity in the colonial objectives of the germans. The usage of military uniforms by Africans was a common practice that can also be seen among the Herero of Namibia and the Beni Ngoma of Tanzania.

Though the Germans were at the center of Njoya's diplomatic and political efforts from 1904-1909, Before and after he oriented himself towards the Fulbe and Islam. Njoya abandoned the german style abruptly in 1909 due to some disappointing political results of engagement with them. By 1912 the Bamum turned away from the Germans and aligned themselves with the Fulbe.

In 1916, the French had taken control of German Cameroon, and the Kingdom of Bamun lost its partial autonomy. Since Njoya resided in Foumban until 1931, despite his formal abolition by France, he had, in a de facto sense, still had assumed the role as the king. Also in 1931, he was sent to Yaoundé, where he died two years later in 1933 at the age of 66. His successor was Seidou Njimoluh Njoya.

Architecture
After the original Foumban palace was burned down in 1913, Njoya embarked on the design and construction of the current one.

The architectural systems of the Bamun feature many of the prominent elements of Afrikan architecture in their vaulted roofs with ventilation, framed opening molding, projecting sills, adobe bricks, bioenvironmental mimickry, and fractal proxemics.

Njoya was exposed to a variety of architectural and building traditions during his childhood and early years of reign from his own travels, encounters with external merchants as well as his reading of Ajami texts.  He encountered Hausa traditional homes, the Mousgoum teleuk in Northern Cameroon, as well as the Ssola Somolo and Batammaliba Tata Somba building systems of northern Togo and Burkina Faso. A combination of these unique structural forms contributed to the development of the new Foumban Palace. Many of the German ethnographers were quite impressed with the new Palace and thought that Njoya must have copied the building style of the europeans. The problem with this assumption is that prominent indigenous elements are identified in the new structure such as encircling verandahs, deep eaves, carved wood posts, raffia palm formwork, and laterite clay bricks.

According to Marie Thorbecke:

"The way in which the brown wood walls of the upper floor rise out of the white plaster of the stone wall bellow attests to a natural instinct that the negro could never ever learn form whites, an instinct that lies in his blood through the inheritance of generations."

Mfon Njoya affirmed that the design of the Foumban Palace had been the result of his own ingenuity and structural engineering expertise. According to Njoya:

 "Long ago, King Njoya built behind the palace a more beautiful dwelling than any that existed. It looked like a white house; however the king had not yet seen any of their houses when he built them. He himself had imagined the way to build it. The terracing was high. It was built with bricks, the ceiling was covered with earth and on this ceiling another room was built. The roof was of mats. This dwelling was named Nkue-yam. The ladder that allowed access to the upper room was so well made that you didn't feel like you were climbing a ladder when going to the upper floor. An outside staircase gave access to the first room and from this one went to the upper floor. The floor on the ground floor was so well done that you would have thought it was not made of earth. It was in the upper room that the king spent the night. It was beautifully decorated. The walls were covered with fabrics, the floor was covered with mats; the hearth was coated with a kind of varnish, the veranda which surrounded this room was also covered with mats. Two metal pipes connected the first floor and the ground floor, one was for the water, the other for the wine; a long string ran from top to bottom. Every morning water was poured into one of these pipes and the servants who spent the night on the ground floor came there to take the water necessary for their toilet. When the king wanted to give wine to the servants, he had it poured into the other pipe, and they came to fill their ndut (drinking vessel) without seeing the one doing the service."

Writing system

Njoya came to power in a tumultuous time. His father Mfon Nsangu had recently been assassinated in a war with the Nso and his mother Njapdunke served as a regent until he was prepared for the position of mfon. During his early days as a ruler he had encountered many neighboring African peoples and witnessed the effects of colonization and illegal human trafficking in Africa. Understanding this existential threat, at the turn of the 20th century he embarked on a mission to modernize the Lerewa picto phonographic glyphs into a syllabary to preserve the history of the Bamum.
The evolution of the glyphs went from 700 signs to 510 signs with 10 arithmetic digits and punctuation. This stage was called Lerewa.
Lerewa is a logographic system of which 80% is composed pictograms representing everyday objects in nature, plants and parts of the human body and the other 20% composed of ideograms and phonograms, representing abstract ideas and sounds respectively. This early form of writing was written from left to right, right to left, top to bottom and bottom to top on clay and wooden tabs as well as animal skins using charcoal. Both hieroglyphs and Lerewa contain two basic elements picto ideograms and phonograms. Most words feature a combination of the 2 signs.

The next phase of writing developed between 1899 and 1901 was called mbima which means mixture in Bamum. It included 439 characters including 10 arithmetic one punctuation, elimination of 116 signs that didn't satisfy Njoya and the introduction of 45 characters to overcome phonetic short comings. Like Lerewa, Mbima is a logographic system where pictograms dominate over ideograms.

In the beginning of 1902 the third iteration of the Bamum script Nyi Nyi Fa Fu (which means God has given grace) was created. Nyi Nyi Fa Fu is reduced by 56 characters down to 381, including 10 arithmetic digits and 2 punctuation marks. Here Ideograms are made primary over pictograms and Left to right writing was mandated, resulting in an expansion of literary activity, numerous correspondences and property transactions.

In 1903 Njoya built schools to teach the writing and also began translating scriptural texts.

The 4th phase of the Bamum script came in 1907 with Ri Nyi Fa Fu. This script had only 286 characters, 10 numbers and 2 punctuations with the logograms simplified.

The 5th iteration of the script Ri Nyi Fu Fen began a year after the development of the last stage and represents the last logographic step of the alphabet. It contains 81 characters less with 205 symbols. This stage totally eliminated pictograms in favor of ideograms and syllables.

In February 1910 Njoya completed the process of going from a picto-syllabic system to the syllabo-graphemic system in the development of Akauku.

Akauku has 83 characters, 70 graphemes, 10 arithmetic digits, 3 diacritics.

Akauku Mfemfe has 91 characters, 70 syllabo graphemic characters, 10 arithmetic figures, 3 diacritics, 3 punctuation marks, 5 arithmetic marks.

In about 15 years through and 5 successive stages the end result was Akauku Mfemfe and this allowed the Bamum to produce maps, birth certificates, construction blue prints, administration documents, court acts, accountings and historical archives.

Njoya may have also invented a hand-powered mill for grinding corn and other cereals.

After initially starting the project in the 1980s, his grandson, Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, a present-day Sultan in Cameroon and the latest ruler in the Bamoun Dynasty, has continued the transition of the palace into a museum, in which schoolchildren are learning the Bamum script developed by Ibrahim Njoya.

See also
Bamum people
Bamum kingdom
List of Cameroonian artists

References

Further reading
Gorges E.H. (1930) The Great War in West Africa, Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., London; Naval & Military Press, Uckfield, 2004:
"A King of Great Accomplishments," Awake!, December, 2007, pp. 26–27
Alexandra Loumpet-Galitzine, Ibrahim Njoya, maître du dessin bamoun in Anthologie de l'art africain du XXe siècle, eds. N'Goné Fall and Jean Loup Pivin, Revue Noire, Paris, 2001, pp. 102–105.

External links

Cameroon history
"Njimoluh determined what is beautiful enough to be Bamum"
"Kings of Africa - Cameroun"

1860s births
1933 deaths
Cameroonian traditional rulers
Creators of writing systems

Ibrahim Njoya


José Pedro Montero (1 August 1878 – 7 June 1927) was President of Paraguay from 1919 to 1920.

Early life
Montero was born in Asunción, in a neighborhood called Villa Aurelia, southeast of the Recoleta, on 1 August 1878. He married Andrea Campos Cervera, and studied in the Colegio Nacional de la Capital (Capital's National School) with his friend Pastor Ibáñez.

He finished school in 1896, then moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he studied medicine and became a pediatrician. He graduated in 1904 from the Faculty of Medicine of the UBA University of Buenos Aires, that same year he presented a thesis about "The proof of the chloride".

Medical career
Back in Paraguay, he became director of the Hospital de Clínicas, and a substitute professor of Pediatrics. In 1901, he was appointed Paraguay's delegate in the Pan-American Congress in Buenos Aires. In 1906, he served as Paraguay's delegate to the fourth Medical Congress in Montevideo, Uruguay. From 1905 to 1908 he received a scholarship from the Faculty of Medicine and taught at the same institution. After the events of July 2, 1908, he became active in politics. He later became a member of the Educational Superior Council and Director of Public Assistance. He founded the maternity services, drugstore, chemical, bacteriological, and urgency services. In 1910, he obtained a position as a member of the Parliament, but after Manuel Gondra was overthrown he left the country.

In Argentina he was an active member of a movement organized by the Partido Liberal Radical (Radical Liberal Party) in 1912. Later in the same year, he was part of the Revolutionary Committee of Pilar. He died on 7 June 1927 and by municipal disposition No. 1766 from June 23 of the same year, the old avenue of the hospital was named after him.

Political career
He was Minister of Finance of Paraguay from 1915 to 1916.

He assumed the first magistracy, in his character of Vice President, after the death of Manuel Franco, a position that he held from June 6, 1919 until August 1920. After World War II, the government of Montero was affected the economical crisis that had expanded through the entire region. This crisis affected mostly the middle and lower classes.

His cabinet was composed of Eusebio Ayala in Foreign Relations, Luis Alberto Riart in the Department of the Interior, Manuel Peña in the Treasury Department, Félix Paiva in the Justice and Culture Department, and Commander Adolfo Chirife in War and Navy.

During his government some forts were founded in Chaco, the Caballero State was acquired, the municipal constitutional law was modified, the colony Nueva Colombia was founded, the project for postal charges to United States was approved, Paraguay was invited to participate in the International Rural Congress of Peoria (Illinois, USA). The Ministry of Public Works started to promote the acquisitions of small properties in the entire territory of the country.

It was also made the division of pieces of land and the colonization of the fiscal lands, there were processed more than five thousand files related to buying of farming lands and were drawn up more 154 titles of property. In 1919 more than 100.000 pesos were used for building schools in the interior of the country, the agreement about the arbitrage with Uruguay and Eladio Velázquez was appointed member of the Supreme Court.

In April 1920 the Feminist Center of Paraguay was founded, several schools were also created and the Fortin Dorado in Chaco is settled. On August 15 of the same year, Montero passed the Presidency to Manuel Gondra. Also that year, the commercial agreement with Japan was signed, the law of trial and dismissal of magistrates; sanitary zones in Asunción, Villarica and Caacupé and was created the regulations for the Army.

Some designations were made in the intellectual and artistic field. The people who received this honor were: Narciso R. Colmán, Juan F. Bazán, Arturo Alsina, Juan Sorazábal, Rufo Galeano, José Concepción Ortiz and Eudoro Acosta Flores. Here is important to mention the hiring of the Brazilian Doctor Edgar Roquette Pinto and the retiring of Juan E. O'Leary in the Colegio Nacional and the Escuela Normal.

One of the biggest concerns of Montero was the problem with the land. In 1919 were founded Nueva Colombia, in Altos, with 6,122 hectares and Santiago, in General Delgado, with 1909 hectares. In 1920, Curupaity was founded in Barrero Grande, with a total of 1,111 hectares.

The education suffered some inconveniences and on 25 July 1919 a plan for the educational reform in the schools of the capital and Villarrica was started, a process which lasted four years. On 22 September of the same year the plan was also adopted for high school education.

He was Representative for the capital and was in that position until 1901. On August 7, 1908 he signed the manifest of the "Radicals" assembly. He was Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior during the government of Eduardo Schaerer. He occupied the position until he joined Manuel Franco as companion for the upcoming presidential elections for the period 1916-1920.

References

1878 births
1927 deaths
People from Asunción
Paraguayan pediatricians
Presidents of Paraguay
Vice presidents of Paraguay
Presidents of the Senate of Paraguay
Finance Ministers of Paraguay
Members of the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay

José Pedro Montero


Jack Vesey Wills (June 1877 – 14 July 1933) was a British trade unionist.

Born in Poplar, in East London, Wills completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and joined the Operative Bricklayers' Society.  He also joined the Social Democratic Federation and, in time, became active in the Labour Party.  He moved to Bermondsey, and was appointed to its council as an alderman in 1909, also serving on the Board of Guardians and, eventually, as Mayor of Bermondsey.  A supporter of workers' education, he was the first treasurer of the Central Labour College, and served on the executive of the National Council of Labour Colleges.

During this period, Wills became interested in syndicalism, and joined the Industrial Syndicalist Education League.  He became one of its most prominent speakers, travelling the country to address meetings, in particular during the London building workers' strike of 1914.  Later that year, he was a founder of the Building Workers' Industrial Union (BWIU), and was elected as its first general secretary.  He was also elected as co-president of the First International Syndicalist Congress, held in London in 1913, but his position as a councillor proved controversial, and he agreed to resign in order that the congress could move to discuss other matters.

Wills remained on the local council, where he became a leader of the left-wing of the Labour group, often coming into conflict with Alfred Salter, the Labour group's overall leader.  He became known as a champion of the rights of municipal employees.  This enabled him to win election as general secretary of the National Union of Corporation Workers in 1921, defeating Manny Shinwell, Chuter Ede, John Allen, Henry Bye and D. G. Stephens.  He immediately arranged for the union's head office to move to Bermondsey, and spent much of the decade campaigning against the contracting out of council services, and for the maintenance of existing levels of pay.

Under Wills' leadership, the NUCW was supportive of the UK general strike; although most of its members were not asked to join the strike, those working in relevant industries were called out and given strike benefits.  Unlike many other unions, NUCW membership remained steady at around 12,000 workers, and in 1928 it was renamed as the "National Union of Public Employees" (NUPE).  Wills succeeded in affiliating the union to the Trades Union Congress and consequently increased its profile.  He died in 1933, while still in office.

References

1877 births
1933 deaths
Councillors in Greater London
English trade unionists
General Secretaries of the National Union of Public Employees
Labour Party (UK) councillors
People from Poplar, London
Social Democratic Federation members
British syndicalists

Jack Wills (trade unionist)


Stavanger Stadion is a multi-use stadium in Stavanger, Norway.  It was used mostly for football matches and hosted the home matches of Viking FK. The stadium opened on 13 August 1917, and was able to hold 17,555 people at the end of its life as Viking's home ground in 2004. The west stand was the largest single-tier spectator stand in the country. The other stands were small roofless terraces without seating.

History

Stavanger Stadion was closed in 2004 when Viking Stadion opened, but was reopened a few years later as a track and field stadium after a major reconstruction of the spectator stands. Some of the seats from the old main stand were donated to Sandnes Idrettspark.

Unlike Viking Stadion, which was built outside the city centre, Stavanger Stadion is located within walking distance from downtown Stavanger.

The attendance record of 18,892 spectators dates from 4 October 1959, when Viking met Odd in the semi-final of the Norwegian Cup.

The venue has hosted the Norwegian Athletics Championships in 1923, 1956 and 1972.

Between 1966 and 1990 Stavanger Stadion hosted nine Norway international matches, including a 2-1 win against England in 1971 and four 1-1 draws with Finland in 1966, 1975, 1979 and 1982 respectively. The remaining four matches included a 3-0 win against Bermuda in 1969, a 4-1 win against Iceland in 1972, a 1-1 draw against East Germany in 1983, and a 2-1 defeat to Sweden in 1990. The Sweden game was the last international Norway played at the stadium and was also the only one of the nine matches they played there that ended with a defeat.

The venue also hosted the Norway national under-21 football team on seven occasions, playing 0–0 against the Netherlands 5 June 1974, 6–0 against Italy on 5 June 1991, 1–1 against England on 1 June 1993, 3–1 against Poland on 21 September 1993, 3–4 against the Czech Republic on 15 August 1995, 2–2 against England on 10 October 1995 and 1–2 against Poland on 24 March 2001.

References

Athletics (track and field) venues in Norway
Football venues in Norway
Eliteserien venues
Norwegian Cup Final venues
Sports venues in Stavanger
1917 establishments in Norway
Event venues established in 1917
Viking FK

Stavanger Stadion


The Iglesia de La Matriz del Salvador (The Matriz Church of the Saviour) is a church in the city of Valparaíso, Chile. Located in the heart of the port district (Barrio Puerto) of the city, surrounded by cobblestone streets and houses it has a historical importance in the city and was declared a National Monument of Chile in 1971.

History

Origins
In 1559, the Bishop of Santiago, Rodrigo Marmolejo, founded the first temple in Valparaiso, a small chapel that was really little more than a hut. From this point as the settlement grew a series of successive religious congregations: Augustinian (1627), Franciscan (1664), Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy (1715), Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1834) and Jesuits (1850) used the church. Wealthy local families  developed the town and church giving it the distinctive architectural style that it has today.

Destruction and reconstruction
In 1578, Sir Francis Drake was said to have devastated the port and looted the chapel, taking its treasures and a chalice of silver. During the 17th and 18th century the church suffered pirate attacks. The church has also had a very uncertain history given the frequency of earthquakes which have gutted the building. Since the initial foundation, three churches have been successively erected on the site of the first chapel.

In November 1822 an earthquake affected the church to the extent it had to be rebuilt stone by stone but this was not done quickly. The church remained a ruin for over a decade until reconstruction began in 1837, finished in 1842, under the direction of priest Jose Antonio Riobío.

This fourth construction, is the one that still stands today.

In 1868, a quite unusual situation took place in the church when it was used as a voting venue for the elections.

Architectural style
The church of a typical basilical style, but is built in a way to represent three ships in a rectangular fashion, separated by two waters. The main facade stands out with its classic composition. Eight columns surround the body of the church and the interior walls are decorated with zenithal paintings. There are two main influences which make up the interior of the church including this classicist style of the tower, and the 18th century Creole style represented by its great heavy walls of adobe brick and the ceiling covered with clay roofing tiles.

See also

References

Buildings and structures in Valparaíso
Buildings and structures in Valparaíso Region
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1842
Tourist attractions in Valparaíso Region
1842 establishments in Chile
19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Chile
Neoclassical church buildings in Chile

Iglesia de la Matriz


TEK is an email-based search engine developed by the TEK project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The search engine enables users to search the Web using only email. It is intended to be used by people with low internet connectivity (for example, high-priced internet connection and low bandwidth connection in developing countries).

TEK stands for "Time Equals Knowledge"; the search engine compensates the searching availability to the time needed for searching. To perform a web search, a user sends a query via email to a server (which is located at MIT). The server then performs the search using existing search engines, downloads actual pages, and emails a subset of those pages back to the user.

References
Levison L, Thies B, Amarasinghe S. The TEK Search Engine. Development by design workshop, MIT, Boston, MA. July 2001. http://tek.sourceforge.net/papers/tek-dyd01.pdf

External links
TEK Project

Internet search engines

TEK search engine


José Enrique Pedreira (February 2, 1904 – January 6, 1959) was a Puerto Rican composer noted for danzas.

Early years
Pedreira was one of four siblings born to José María Pedreira and Rosa Kehrham in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
His family, who was financially prosperous, sent him to the best private schools in the island. He began to take private music lessons at a young age. In 1922, he graduated from high school and was sent to New York City, by his parents, to continue his musical education. He enrolled in the music school of Zygmunt Stojowski and learned piano and music composition. It was there that he met a fellow student who was to become his wife, Alicia Hutchinson. During his student years he composed his first work, the waltz "Alicia".

Musical career
In 1932, Pedreira returned to Puerto Rico with his wife and established the Pedreira Academy of Music in San Juan. He gave piano lessons while she (a pianist in her own right) gave piano and violin lessons. During his spare time he composed music and danzas for piano, violin and cello. The couple had one child, José Enrique "Quique" Pedreira Hutchinson.

Musical compositions
Besides "Alicia", his first composition, he composed "Canción Criolla" in 1934, for which he was awarded the Elzaburu priz from the Ateneo Puertorriqueño. He also composed "Concierto en re menor para piano y orquestra" (Concert in R minor for Piano and Orquestra) and in 1942, "Ensueño de Marta" his first danza. In October 1946. Pedreira's composition "Estudio de Concierto en Do Sostenido Menor" was included in Hilda Andino's concert at Carnegie Hall.

Pedreira also received many awards. He won a competition sponsored by the Juilliard School of Music in New York, with his composition "Tus Caricias" and a first prize for his danza "Siempre", during the celebration of Juan Morel Campos 100th birthday in 1957.

Many of his compositions were used by other Puerto Rican artists, among them Jesús Maria Sanromá and Graciela Rivera. His compositions were not all piano related. He also composed various works to be played on the violin.

In 1953, Pedreira and José Raúl Ramírez created the Dúo Piano-Organo "Pedreira-Ramírez". The duo performed in various weekly radio and television programs. They also performed in various cities in the United States.

Legacy
José Enrique Pedreira died on January 6, 1959, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. José Raúl Ramírez was petitioned by his widow, Alicia Hutchinson, to become custodian of his works. During the years, Ramírez published many of the works by Pedreira. In 1985, Pedreira was posthumously inducted into the Danza Composers Hall of Fame located in the town of San German, Puerto Rico.

Selected compositions
 Canción de cuna para un infante moribundo (Lullaby for a Dying Child) for cello (or viola) and piano (1954)
 Caricias (Your Tender Touch)
 Colibrí
 Concerto in D minor for piano and orchestra
 Elegía India, Poema y Souvenir
 El Jardín de piedra (Garden of Rock), Ballet; libretto by Lotti Tischer
 Encanto
 Ensueño de Marta (Martha's Dream), Danza for piano (1956)
 Nocturne melancholique for piano (1950)
 No podrás olvidarme, Canción Bolero for voice and piano (1947)
 Plenitude, Nocturne for piano (1948)
 Ritmo, Zapateado for piano (1956)
 Siempre (Always), Danza for piano (1960); dedicated to Juan Morel Campos
 Sonata in B minor for piano
 Súplica, Danza for piano (1949)
 Tus caricias, Danza for piano (1948)
 Vals en la major (Waltz in A major) for piano (1949)
 Valses de Concierto (Concert Waltzes)

Awards and recognitions
Pedreira received many awards and recognitions during his lifetime.  Some of the institutions that honored him were:
 The University of Puerto Rico
 The Puerto Rican Athenaeum
 The Juilliard School of Music
 The Women's Civic Club of San Juan

See also

 List of Puerto Ricans

References

External links
 Siempre by José Enrique Pedreira

1904 births
1959 deaths
Puerto Rican composers
Puerto Rican male composers
Puerto Rican musicians
Musicians from San Juan, Puerto Rico
20th-century American composers
20th-century American male musicians

José Enrique Pedreira


A gacha game is a video game that has a mechanic of getting items or characters by spending in-game currency. The items or character players receive is random. The rewards are usually graded by rarity. Players can purchase in-game currency with real-world money.

Some gacha games have a pity system, where after a certain amount of draws without getting anything rare, the system guarantees the player a rare item.

Video game genres

Gacha game


Crime and Punishment is a stage adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky′s classic 1866 novel Crime and Punishment. The authors, Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, created a 90-minute, three-person play, with each character playing multiple roles.

The play was performed at 59E59 St Theater with Writers′ Theatre in 2007 in New York City. The New York Times, in its positive review of the play, rhetorically asked, "Who would have thought that the novel no high school student has ever finished reading would make such engrossing theater?" before promising that the Campbell and Columbus′ stage adaptation would "banish any bad memories you might have of trying to struggle through Dostoyevsky's book." The show received positive reviews in The Washington Post, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer and The Seattle Times, as well.

The play was performed by the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia in 2006 and the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., in 2007. In 2009, it was staged by Seattle′s Intiman Theatre, the Cleveland Play House, and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and by the Kentucky Repertory Theatre in November 2010. It will be performed by the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company in early 2011.

Campbell previously wrote My Own Stranger, which was adapted from the works of poet Anne Sexton, The Beats, which featured the material of  beat poets including Allen Ginsberg (played by David Cromer), and The Gospel According to Mark Twain.

The play won Chicago′s 2003 Joseph Jefferson Award, Best New Adaptation.

References

External links

2007 plays
American plays
Plays based on novels
Adaptations of works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (play)


The Danish Immigration Service ( or Udlændingeservice)  is a directorate within the Danish Ministry of Refugees, Immigration and Integration Affairs.
The service administrates the Danish Aliens Act (), in other words, it handles applications for asylum, family reunification, visas, work permits, etc. In addition, the service is engaged in a wide range of other duties relating to the asylum and immigration area, including the task of accommodating asylum seekers.

There have been disagreements between the Danish Immigration Service and Minister for Integration Søren Pind over the requirements for family reunification for immigrants.

In October 2017 the Danish migration agency Udlændingestyrelsen rejected over 600 asylum applications because the applicants had lied about their national identity in order to achieve preferential treatment.

References

External links
 Danish Immigration Service
 Denmark Immigration and Visa Consultants

Immigration Service
Immigration to Denmark

Danish Immigration Service


Mario Roselli was an Italian cargo ship, confiscated by Nazi Germany, which was sunk by Allied aircraft on 11 October 1943 in Corfu Bay, killing 1,302 Italian POWs.

Ship history

The Mario Roselli was built by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in 1940. Launched on 25 April 1941, the ship was delivered to the customer on 22 April 1942 and seized the next day in Trieste by the Italian Navy which incorporated it in its auxiliary war fleet.

Her first mission was the supply of Italian troops stationed in Libya, sailing between Brindisi and Benghazi. On 12 June 1942, on passage to Benghazi, the ship was substantially damaged by Allied aircraft and towed to Taranto for repairs. On 19 December she returned to service on the route Naples - Palermo - Bizerte.

On 9 September 1943, the day after the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces, Mario Roselli was confiscated by the Germans and used to transport Italian POWs to Venice and Trieste.

The disaster in Corfu Bay

On 9 October 1943 the ship arrived in Corfu to take some 5,500 Italian prisoners on board. They were transferred from shore to ship using small boats. At 7:15 on 10 October, when the boarding was almost finished, an Allied aircraft appeared and immediately attacked the ship and motorboats. One bomb hit a motorboat crammed with prisoners. Another fell directly through an open hatch into the hold of the ship crowded with Italians, and exploded, causing terrible carnage. The ship leaned towards starboard and took water. Surviving prisoners tried to escape by jumping into the sea, but many drowned. In total there were 1,302 victims.

The German guards opened fire on prisoners still on land who tried to escape.

The Mario Roselli was abandoned in the harbor, but was attacked again the next day and sank.

Recovery and reconstruction

In 1952 the wreck of the Mario Roselli was salvaged and towed to Monfalcone for reconstruction. She had a second career between 1952 and 1972, when she was sold to be scrapped in England.

References
Notes

Bibliography

Maritime incidents in October 1943
Disasters in the Mediterranean Sea
1941 ships
Ships sunk by aircraft
World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea
Troop ships of Germany
Captured ships

MV Mario Roselli


A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as Rome, Carthage, Athens and Sparta and the Italian city-states during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, such as Florence, Venice, Genoa and Milan.

With the rise of nation states worldwide, there remains some disagreement on the number of modern city-states that still exist; Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City are the candidates most commonly discussed. Out of these, Singapore is the largest and most populous, and is generally considered to be the last real city-state left in the world, with full sovereignty, international borders, its own currency, a robust military, and substantial international influence in its own right. The Economist refers to the nation as the "world's only fully functioning city-state".

Several non-sovereign cities enjoy a high degree of autonomy and are often confused for city-states. Hong Kong, Macau, and members of the United Arab Emirates—most notably Dubai and Abu Dhabi—are often cited as such.

Historical background

Ancient and medieval world

Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others. Danish historian Poul Holm has classed the Viking colonial cities in medieval Ireland, most importantly the Kingdom of Dublin, as city-states.

In Cyprus, the Phoenician settlement of Kition (in present-day Larnaca) was a city-state that existed from around 800 BC until the end of the 4th century BC.

Some of the most well-known examples of city-state culture in human history are the ancient Greek city-states and the merchant city-states of Renaissance Italy, which organised themselves as independent centers. The success of regional units coexisting as autonomous actors in loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy and Greece, often prevented their amalgamation into larger national units. However, such small political entities often survived only for short periods because they lacked the resources to defend themselves against incursions by larger states (such as Roman conquest of Greece). Thus they inevitably gave way to larger organisations of society, including the empire and the nation-state.

Central Europe

In the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) over 80 Free Imperial Cities came to enjoy considerable autonomy in the Middle Ages and in early modern times, buttressed legally by international law following the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Some, like three of the earlier Hanseatic cities – Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck – pooled their economic relations with foreign powers and were able to wield considerable diplomatic clout. Individual cities often made protective alliances with other cities or with neighbouring regions, including the Hanseatic League (1358 – 17th century), the Swabian League of Cities (1331–1389), the Décapole (1354–1679) in the Alsace, or the Old Swiss Confederacy ( 1300 – 1798). The Swiss cantons of Zürich, Bern, Lucerne, Fribourg, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, and Geneva originated as city-states.

After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, some cities – then members of different confederacies – officially became sovereign city-states, such as the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (1806–11 and again 1813–71), the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main (1815–66), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1806–11 and again 1814–71), the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck (1806–11 and again 1813–71), and the Free City of Kraków (1815–1846). Under Habsburg rule the city of Fiume had the status of a corpus separatum (1779–1919), which – while falling short of an independent sovereignty – had many attributes of a city-state.

Italy

In Northern and Central Italy during the medieval and Renaissance periods, city-states — with various amounts of associated land — became the standard form of polity. Some of them, despite being de facto independent states, were formally part of the Holy Roman Empire. The era of the Italian states, in particular from the 11th to the 15th centuries, featured remarkable economic development, trade, manufacture, and mercantile capitalism, together with increasing urbanization, with remarkable influence throughout much of the Mediterranean world and Europe as a whole. During this time, most of the Italian city-states were ruled by one person, such as the Signoria or by a dynasty, such as the House of Gonzaga and the House of Sforza.

Examples of Italian city-states during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Republic of Florence, Duchy of Milan, Duchy of Ferrara, San Marino, Duchy of Modena and Reggio, Duchy of Urbino, Duchy of Mantua and the Republic of Lucca.

The powerful maritime republics: Republic of Venice, Republic of Genoa, Republic of Amalfi, Republic of Pisa, Republic of Ancona and Duchy of Gaeta.

Southeast Asia
In the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, aristocratic groups, Buddhist leaders, and others organized settlements into autonomous or semi-autonomous city-states. These were referred to as mueang, and were usually related in a tributary relationship now described as mandala or as over-lapping sovereignty, in which smaller city-states paid tribute to larger ones that paid tribute to still larger ones—until reaching the apex in cities like Ayutthaya, Bagan, Bangkok and others that served as centers of Southeast Asian royalty. The system existed until the 19th century, when colonization by European powers occurred. Siam, a regional power at the time, needed to define their territories for negotiation with the European powers so the Siamese government established a nation-state system, incorporated their tributary cities (Lan Xang, Cambodia and some Malay cities) into their territory and abolished the mueang and the tributary system.

In early Philippine history, the barangay was a complex sociopolitical unit which scholars have historically considered the dominant organizational pattern among the various peoples of the Philippine archipelago. These sociopolitical units were sometimes also referred to as barangay states, but are more properly referred to using the technical term polity. Evidence suggests a considerable degree of independence as city states ruled by Datus, Rajahs and Sultans. Early chroniclers record that the name evolved from the term balangay, which refers to a plank boat widely used by various cultures of the Philippine archipelago prior to the arrival of European colonizers.

20th-century cities under international supervision

Danzig

The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 towns in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 under the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I.

Fiume

After a prolonged period where the city of Fiume enjoyed considerable autonomy under Habsburg rule (see Corpus separatum (Fiume)), The Free State of Fiume was proclaimed as a fully independent free state which existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of 28 km2 (11 sq mi) comprised the city of Fiume (now in Croatia and, since the end of World War II, known as Rijeka) and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy.

Jerusalem

Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, Mandatory Palestine was to be partitioned into three states: a Jewish state of Israel, an Arab state of Palestine, and a corpus separatum (Latin for "separated body") consisting of a Jerusalem city-state under the control of United Nations Trusteeship Council. Although the plan had some international support and the UN accepted this proposal (and still officially holds the stance that Jerusalem should be held under this regime), implementation of the plan failed as the 1948 Palestine war broke out with the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, ultimately resulting in Jerusalem being split into West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. Israel would eventually gain control of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Memel

The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors. The Memel Territory was to remain under the control of the League of Nations until a future day when the people of the region would be allowed to vote on whether the land would return to Germany or not. The then predominantly ethnic German Memel Territory (Prussian Lithuanians and Memellanders constituted the other ethnic groups), situated between the river and the town of that name, was occupied by Lithuania in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923.

Shanghai

The Shanghai International Settlement (1845–1943) was an international zone with its own legal system, postal service, and currency.

Tangier

The international zone within the city of Tangier, in North Africa was approximately 373 km2 (144 sq mi). It was at first under the joint administration of France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, plus later Portugal, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. The international zone was initially attached to Morocco. It then became a French-Spanish protectorate from 1923 until 29 October 1956, when it was reintegrated into the state of Morocco.

Trieste

The Free Territory of Trieste was an independent territory situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, facing the north part of the Adriatic Sea, under direct responsibility of the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II, from 1947 to 1954. The UN attempted to make the Free Territory of Trieste into a city state, but it never gained real independence and in 1954 its territory was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia.

West Berlin
In the 20th century West Berlin, though lacking sovereignty, functioned from 1948 until 1990 as a state legally not belonging to any other state, but ruled by the Western Allies. They allowed – notwithstanding their overlordship as occupant powers – its internal organisation as one state simultaneously being a city, officially called Berlin (West). Though West Berlin maintained close ties to the West German Federal Republic of Germany, it never legally formed a part of it.

Modern city-states

Monaco

The Principality of Monaco is an independent city-state bordering France. Monaco-Ville (the ancient fortified city) and Monaco's well-known area Monte Carlo are districts of a continuous urban zone, not distinct cities, though they were three separate municipalities (communes) until 1917. The Principality of Monaco and the city of Monaco (each having specific powers) govern the same territory. Though they maintain a small military, they would still have to rely on France for defence in the face of an aggressive power.

Singapore

Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia bordering Malaysia to the north and Indonesia to the south. About 5.6 million people live and work within , making Singapore the 2nd-most-densely populated country in the world after Monaco. Singapore was part of the Federation of Malaysia for two years before it was expelled from the federation in 1965, becoming an independent republic, a city and a sovereign country. The Economist refers to the nation as the "world's only fully functioning city-state". In particular, it has its own currency, a large commercial airport, one of the busiest trans-shipment maritime ports in the world, and fully fledged armed forces to safeguard the nation's sovereignty against potential regional aggressors.

Vatican City

Until September 1870, the city of Rome had been controlled by the pope as part of his Papal States. When King Victor Emmanuel II seized the city in 1870, Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.

Because he could not travel without effectively acknowledging the authority of the king, Pius IX and his successors each claimed to be a "Prisoner in the Vatican", unable to leave the  papal enclave once they had ascended the papal thrones.

The impasse was resolved in 1929 by the Lateran Treaties negotiated by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini between King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius XI. Under this treaty, Vatican City was recognized as an independent state, with the Pope as its head. The Vatican City State has its own citizenship, diplomatic corps, flag, and postage stamps. With a population of less than 1,000 (mostly clergymen), it is by far the smallest sovereign country in the world.

States with similar characteristics
A number of other small states share many of these characteristics, and are sometimes cited as modern city-states. Djibouti, Qatar, Brunei, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Malta each have a capital urban center comprising a major portion of the population and the majority of GDP. Each has more than one distinct municipality, with one identified as a capital city, though the same was often the case for historical city-states. Occasionally, microstates with high population densities such as San Marino are cited, despite lacking a large urban centre.

Non-sovereign city-states

Some cities or urban areas, while not sovereign states, may nevertheless be constituent states of a federation, or enjoy a high degree of autonomy. As such, they function as "city-states" within the context of the sovereign state to which they belong. Historian Mogens Herman Hansen describes this aspect of self-government as: "The city-state is a self-governing, but not necessarily independent political unit." A city with more limited self-government may be referred to as an independent city.

Some non-sovereign cities which have a high degree of autonomy which have been described as city-states include:

Spain: Ceuta and Melilla
 China: Hong Kong and Macau
 United Kingdom: Gibraltar

Some cities that are constituent states in a federation, and as such can be accurately described as non-sovereign city-states with a high degree of autonomy include:
 Argentina: Buenos Aires
 Austria: Vienna
 Belgium: Brussels
 France: Paris
 Romania: Bucharest
 Germany: Bremen, Berlin and Hamburg
 Mexico: Mexico City
 Russia: Moscow and Saint Petersburg
 Switzerland: Basel-Stadt
 United Arab Emirates: Dubai, Abu Dhabi

Proposed city-states

London

The London independence movement seeks a city-state separate from the United Kingdom.

See also
Charter city
City network
Federal district
Pyu city-states
Royal free city
List of fictional city-states in literature

References

Further reading
Mogens Herman Hansen (ed.), A comparative study of thirty city-state cultures : an investigation conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2000. (Historisk-filosofiske skrifter, 21). .
Mogens Herman Hansen (ed.), A comparative study of six city-state cultures : an investigation, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2002. (Historisk-filosofiske skrifter, 27). .
 Geoffrey Parker, Sovereign City: The City-State Ancient and Modern, London: Reaktion Books, 2004. .

External links

Types of countries
Political geography

City-state


The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is the civilian oversight agency in Alberta, Canada responsible for the investigation of incidents resulted in serious injury or death to any person, as well as serious or sensitive allegations of police misconduct. ASIRT has jurisdiction over all municipal police officers and Royal Canadian Mounted Police "K" Division officers, and for all complaints whether on or off duty related.

Organization
ASIRT has two offices—one in Edmonton, the other in Calgary. The Executive Director heads the agency, and is responsible for reviewing all investigative reports and liaise with Crown Counsel, if there are reasonable grounds to determine an offense may have been committed, to determine whether charges will be laid against the subject officer.

ASIRT is one of the three investigative oversight agencies for police in Canada (the other being the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba and Nova Scotia's Serious Incident Response Team) to have current sworn police officers from the Province appointed as investigators. On the other hand, the Special Investigation Unit of Ontario, the Independent Investigations Office of British Columbia, and the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes of Quebec prohibits serving police officers from their respective provinces from being appointed as an investigator.

Besides management, administrative and support staff, there are 11 civilian investigators and 11 police officer investigators. 7 are from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2 from Edmonton Police Service, 2 from Calgary Police Service and 1 from Canadian Forces Military Police. Civilian investigators are appointed as Peace Officers under Section 46.2(1)(2)(b) of the Police Act.

ASIRT is a member of the Canadian Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (CACOLE).

Jurisdiction
ASIRT is the second investigative oversight agency for police in Canada, after the Ontario Special Investigation Unit. Its jurisdiction extends to all serving police officers regardless of agency. However, it does not investigate other provincial or municipal law enforcement officers (known as "Peace Officers" under Alberta statues).

ASIRT has entered into Memorandums of Understanding to also investigate police incident in Yukon, as well as complaints against Canadian Forces Military Police that are stationed in Alberta. Further, ASIRT has on occasion investigated matters in Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador, at the request of the respective provincial governments.

Mandate
ASIRT does not accept complaints from the general public, and can only accept cases as assigned by the Director of Law Enforcement. The agency can either take the role as the lead investigative agency, be the overseer of an investigation conducted by a police agency, a reviewer of a RCMP investigation, or take part as both the overseer and reviewer.  Once an investigation is completed, the report is forwarded to the Executive Director. The report is not made public.

While all Canadian investigative oversight agency of the police investigate into incidents where serious harm or death as a result of police action, ASIRT has the additional mandate to investigate matters that are "Sensitive Allegations of Police Misconduct" - fraud, Breach of trust, sexual assault, aggravated assault by an officer or potential systemic racism and systemic corruption issues.

References

External links
  ASIRT Site

Civilian regulating boards
Alberta government departments and agencies
Police oversight organizations
Government agencies established in 2008

Alberta Serious Incident Response Team


Chak No.42 Gop-e-Rah is a small village located in Kasur District, Punjab, Pakistan.

Gop-e-Rah chak 42 is a small village at a distance of almost 8 kilometers from Pattoki Tehsil, (District Kasur) in Pakistan. As, land of this village is very fertile, so, most of the people from this village are related to agriculture. Population of Gop-e-rah is approximately 300 persons. Many young people have moved to cities for better education and better career opportunities and are no more doing agricultural work.

People of Gop-e-Rah are Muslims. Main tribes are Ghumman, Cheema, Mangan, Sial, Gill, and others.

Populated places in Kasur District

Gop-e-Rah


Basdeo Panday (; born 25 May 1933) is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian lawyer, politician, trade unionist, economist, actor, and former civil servant who served as the fifth Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago from 1995 to 2001. He was the first person of Indian descent along with being the first Hindu to hold the office of Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He was first elected to Parliament in 1976 as the Member for Couva North, Panday served as Leader of the Opposition five times between 1976 and 2010 and was a founding member of the United Labour Front (ULF), the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), and the United National Congress (UNC). He served as leader of the ULF and UNC, and was President General of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union.

He is the former chairman and party leader of the United National Congress. In 2006, Panday was convicted of failing to declare a bank account in London and imprisoned; however, on March 20, 2007, that conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal. On May 1 he decided to resign as Chairman of the United National Congress, but the party's executive refused to accept his resignation. He lost the party's internal elections on January 24, 2010, to Deputy Leader and now former Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

In 2005, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs.

Early life
Basdeo Panday was born on 25 May 1933, in St. Julien Village, Princes Town, British Trinidad and Tobago into an Indo-Trinidadian family to Kissoondaye and Harry "Chote" Sookchand Panday. His grandparents were from British India and immigrated to Trinidad under the Indian indenture system. His grandmother was from Laxmanpur, a farming village of the Azamgarh district in the Bhojpur region of the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh in the Hindi Belt of North India. He attended New Grant Government School and
St. Julien Presbyterian School. He was later enrolled in Presentation College, San Fernando. He later worked as a sugarcane weigher at the Williamsville Estate near Princes Town for one crop season in 1951. He then worked as a primary school teacher at Seereram Memorial Vedic School in Montrose, Chaguanas, and at St. Clement Vedic School at the St. Clement Junction in St. Madeleine. He was also a civil servant at the San Fernando Magistrate's Court where he took notes for Magistrate Churchill Johnson, Magistrate Errol Roopnarine, and Magistrate Noor Mohamed Hassanali, who would go on to be the President of Trinidad and Tobago during Panday's term as prime minister.

In 1957, Panday left Trinidad and Tobago to go to the United Kingdom to further his education. He obtained a diploma in drama from London School of Dramatic Art in 1960 and a degree in law in 1962 from Inns of Court School of Law where he was a member of Lincoln's Inn and was subsequently called to the bar. He also received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of London as an external student in 1965. While in the United Kingdom, Panday worked as a laborer on a building site, a clerk at the London County Council, and an electrician to support himself through university. He also appeared in several acting roles, including Nine Hours to Rama (1963) and The Winston Affair (1964). In 1965, he was awarded  a Commonwealth scholarship to go to  the Delhi School of Economics in India to pursue a post-graduate degree in economics and political science; however, he turned down the offer and returned to Trinidad and Tobago in 1965 to practice law because of family commitments and the changing political situation in the newly independent Trinidad and Tobago.

Political career

Early years
Panday's political career began in 1965, when he joined the Workers and Farmers Party and made an unsuccessful run for Parliament. In 1972, he was appointed as an opposition senator for the Democratic Labour Party. The following year he was recruited to the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Union. He staged an internal coup, becoming the union's President General and under him the union expanded to workers from a variety of industries and became the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union.

On 8 February 1975, amidst the backdrop of labour struggles, Panday met with fellow union leaders George Weekes and Raffique Shah. Together, they founded the United Labour Front. All three were arrested on March 18 during an attempted march from San Fernando to Port-of-Spain, but were found not guilty on April 22 "on the charge of leading a public march without permission".

Panday won the Couva North seat in the 1976 general election, becoming an MP and official opposition leader. The next year the party split into two factions and Panday was ousted as party leader in favour of Shah. He was reinstated in 1978 after Winston Nanan, who previously supported Shah, defected to Panday and Shah resigned.

Following a poor performance in the 1980 local elections, Panday co-founded the Trinidad and Tobago National Alliance with A. N. R. Robinson of the Democratic Action Congress and Lloyd Best of the Tapia House Group. He retained his seat in the 1981 general election.

In 1984 the National Alliance became the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and in 1985 merged with the Organisation for National Reconstruction. They won a decisive victory in 1986. Panday was named Minister of External Affairs and International Trade.  The party soon fractured along racial lines; Panday accused Robinson and the government of discrimination against Indians and autocratic rule. Robinson reshuffled his cabinet in response, and Panday found himself with reduced ministerial responsibilities. The infighting continued, culminating with Panday, Kelvin Ramnath, and Trevor Sudama being expelled from the party on February 8, 1988.

UNC, Prime Ministership, and electoral crises
Panday and the other expelled ministers founded the Caucus for Love, Unity and Brotherhood (CLUB '88), which he revealed in October would become the United National Congress (UNC) on 30 April 1989. Economic decline, austerity, racial tensions and, above all, the failed but impactful 1990 coup attempt led to the NAR being swept out of power in the 1991 general election and the UNC, led by Panday, becoming official opposition.

The 1995 general election was a defining moment in Panday's career. The ruling PNM party called an early vote, expecting a victory. However, the election ended with the PNM and UNC holding 17 seats each, and the NAR holding 2. The UNC and NAR entered a coalition, thereby bringing the UNC into power and making Panday the first Indo-Trinidadian Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1995 Panday was charged with five counts of sexual indecency related to a harassment case brought by a former female supporter, however he was freed less than two after the 1995 election.

Panday once again led the UNC to victory in the 2000 election, being sworn in as Prime Minister for a second time. In 2001, UNC MPs Ramesh Maharaj, Trevor Sudama, and Ralph Maraj alleged government corruption, pressuring Panday to appoint a Commission of Inquiry; Panday responded by firing Maharaj. Sudama and Maraj then resigned, leaving the UNC with a minority. Panday was thus forced to call a new election. The 2001 general election resulted in an unprecedented 18–18 tie between the UNC and PNM, sparking a constitutional crisis over who should form government. Both parties agreed to abide by the decision of the president, A.N.R. Robinson, as to who would lead the government, as well as to form a unity government. However, Panday reneged on the agreement when Robinson appointed PNM leader Patrick Manning, finding his explanation for doing so (Manning's "moral and spiritual values") unsatisfactory. Panday also argued that Robinson did not act in accordance with the constitution by choosing Manning, as he did not hold the majority in parliament. He refused to accept the position of Leader of the Opposition in protest.

Parliament was dissolved and new elections were called in 2002 after it was unable to elect a Speaker. This time the PNM were brought back into power with the UNC playing opposition. Panday's third term as Leader of the Opposition would last until 2006, when he was convicted of failing to declare a bank account in London.

Secret investigations into Panday began after the 2001 election, when the Central Authority and the Anti Corruption Bureau was set up by the PNM. On 18 September 2002, Panday was charged under section 27(1)(b) of the Integrity in Public Life Act No. 8 of 1987 for failing to declare the contents of a bank account in London for the years 1997, 1998 and 1999. During the investigation, he had first stated that the funds in the account were for his children's education and that his name was added to the account to prevent problems should something happen to his wife. He did not consider the funds his own, and thus did not declare them. However, after receiving further information from the bank, he stated that the account had been opened jointly with his wife to deposit money for his open heart surgery. After his wife transferred the account to another branch she maintained and administered it, and his name remained on it out of convenience. Panday blamed it on the PNM for trying to derail him weeks before the 2002 general election was to be held.

UNC leadership and power struggles

On 31 May 2005, Panday, his wife, Oma, former UNC MP Carlos John, and businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh (chairman of Northern Construction Limited) were arrested on corruption charges. The State alleged that the Pandays had received TT$250,000 on December 30, 1998, from John and Galbaransingh in exchange for giving Northern Construction a construction contract for the Piarco Airport Development Project (PADP). Panday, Oma Panday and John were placed on TT$750,000 bail, while Galbaransingh's bail was placed at TT$1,000,000. Panday refused bail and chose to remain in prison. This was called a punitive bail both by supporters of the UNC and by former Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj, a sometimes political opponent of Panday. On June 7, 2005, bail was reduced to TT$650,000. A day later, Panday accepted bail after being jailed for over a week. Charges were later dropped in 2012.

In September 2005, during the UNC internal elections, Panday nominated Winston Dookeran as his successor as party leader. He himself retained the position of chairman.  The following month, Jack Warner called for Panday to hand over the position of Leader of the Opposition to Dookeran as well. Panday failed to do so, and with the Opposition MPs split 8–8 on the issue, Panday remained as the leader of the Opposition .

In October, Panday also invited Ramesh Maharaj back into the UNC.  In February 2006, Panday fired senator Robin Montano, who opposed Maharaj's return to the party. Three days later senator Roy Augustus resigned. He replaced Montano with Tim Gopeesingh, and Augustus with former Olympic athlete Ato Boldon.

On 24 April 2006, Panday was found guilty on all three counts he was charged with back in 2002, and sentenced to two years with hard labour and a TT$20,000 fine. He was also denied bail, and ordered to pay the sum in the account "for each year he was charged for not making the declaration". He appealed the decision. Following his 2006 conviction, Panday's position as Leader of the Opposition was revoked. He was replaced by Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

On 3 January 2007, Panday was reinstated as leader of the UNC. On 20 March 2007, the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction against Panday, based on the possibility that he may not have received a fair trial. A new trial under a different magistrate was ordered. The three Court of Appeal judges agreed that there was, in fact, a real possibility of bias by the Chief Magistrate in his ruling. Information that surfaced later on, linked Chief Magistrate McNicolls to a multimillion-dollar land deal and a company associated with one of the main witnesses in the Basdeo Panday trial. This information, along with the fact that Chief Magistrate McNicolls refused to give evidence for the criminal prosecution of the Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma, who he claimed tried to influence him to rule in Panday's favor, which caused that prosecution to fail, were the main arguments used by Panday's lawyers in his Appeal Court hearing.

Since early 2009 Basdeo Panday was challenged for the leadership of the party by a small coalition of Opposition MPs led by the party's deputy political leader, Warner and Maharaj.

Political hiatus and acquittal
On January 24, 2010, Panday lost his bid to be elected Political Leader of the UNC once again. He suffered a defeat at the hands of new Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar. He did not contest the post of chairman hence he no longer sits on the executive of the United National Congress. On 25 February 2010 President George Maxwell Richards revoked the appointment of Panday as Leader of the Opposition and replaced him with Persad-Bissessar after the majority of Opposition MPs indicated their support for her. Panday did not participate in the general elections held on 24 May 2010 and hence his term as a Member of Parliament ended.

On 26 June 2012, Panday was finally acquitted of all charges. The magistrate stated that he had not been given due process. However, in September 2012, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was given leave to challenge the decision. On 7 October 2014, the DPP withdrew the application to review the decision. The presiding Justice stated that Panday would've "face hardships and prejudice" if prosecution continued, which it did not. Also in 2012, charges for the Piarco Airport scandal were dropped.

Patriotic Front and return to politics
On the 25 May 2019 (Panday's birthday), Panday's daughter Mickela, after leaving the UNC, formed a new political party called the Patriotic Front. Panday, being estranged from the UNC, became associated with the Patriotic Front and in 2020, a year after, on his birthday and first anniversary of the party, he said he would support his daughter's party in the 2020 Trinidad and Tobago general election and he even expressed interest in returning to politics given the situation of the country and said that he could no not sit by idly and watch the country continue on its current path. In June 2020 Mickela Panday announced that her father was the campaign manager of the Patriotic Front. The party however pulled out of the 2020 general elections, saying that they had no time to mobilize themselves.

Impact on Trinidadian and Tobagonian culture and media

Impact of election
The election of the first Indo-Trinidadian prime minister was seen as the moment in which Indians "arrived" in Trinidad. Panday took the opportunity to correct perceived wrongs against the Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian community.

Religion and Holidays
Shortly after beginning his first term as Prime Minister, Panday granted the Shouter Baptists a national holiday. His political sponsorship contributed to the legitimization of the religion in the public's eye.  He also decreed that Indian Arrival Day would forever be named as such, rather than simply "Arrival Day" after 1996. He was well known for his religious pluralism and often quoted from the scriptures of the different religions in Trinidad and Tobago.

Music
Panday was the subject of several critical and racist calypsos during his first year office, such has Cro Cro's Allyuh Look for Dat and Watchman's Mr. Panday Needs His Glasses. Panday struck back in 1997 by warning of guidelines for state-sponsored competitions to prevent "taxpayers money [being] used to divide the society, whether it be on racial or any other grounds"

Language
In addition to speaking English, Panday studied Hindi and he has given speeches at the Hindi FoundationTT on the importance of the language in Trinidad and Tobago. Panday is widely associated with the Trinidadian Hindustani word neemakharam (ingrate), and has popularized the term outside of the Indo-Trinidadian community. He has used the word to describe his political opponents, including Winston Dookeran, Trevor Sudama, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Ramesh Maharaj, and other rival UNC members.

Relationship with the press
Panday feuded with the media several times during his political career. In 1996 the Trinidad Guardian ran a front page featuring a photo of him with a drink and the headline "Chutney Rising". An incensed Panday ordered a boycott of the paper, refusing to allow their reporters access to government information. He accused editor-in-chief Jones P. Madiera of being a racist and called on his resignation. Ultimately, managing editor Alwin Chow, Madiera, and several other staff members left the Guardian and went on to form a new newspaper, The Independent.

Panday reiterated his dissatisfaction with the press with his refusal to sign the Declaration of Chapultepec, a 1994 document affirming freedom of the press. In 1998 he stated he would not endorse the declaration "until it repudiated the "untrammelled right of the press to publish anything it wants"".

Personal life
Basdeo Panday is married to Oma Panday (née Ramkissoon). He has four daughters: Niala, Mickela, Nicola, and Vastala. Niala was born to his first wife Norma Panday (née Mohammed), who died in 1981. Panday serves as the Chief Administrator of the Basdeo Panday Foundation, a charitable organization. In November of 2019, Panday was bestowed an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Trinidad and Tobago. His religion is Hinduism. His brother-in-law was the late Indian classical- and chutney-singer Sam Boodram who was married to Panday's sister Cynthia Panday. Panday has a dog named Norman who was a stray that he took in. During the COVID-19 pandemic videos that Panday's daughter, Mickela, posted of him gardening and playing with his dog Norman went viral on social media and he was lauded by the news as setting an example by following the mandate to stay home to help combat the spread of the virus.

Filmography and stage credits

Film

Television

Theatre

See also
 Indo-Caribbean
 British Indo-Caribbean people
 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas
 Trinidadian and Tobagonian British
 Trinidadians
 List of Trinidadians
 List of Indo-Trinidadians and Tobagonians

References

External links
 NALIS Biography of Basdeo Panday

1933 births
Alumni of University of London Worldwide
Alumni of the University of London
Living people
Prime Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago
Foreign ministers of Trinidad and Tobago
Members of the House of Representatives (Trinidad and Tobago)
Trinidad and Tobago people of Indian descent
United National Congress politicians
United Labour Front politicians
Workers and Farmers Party politicians
Trinidad and Tobago politicians of Indian descent
Trinidad and Tobago trade unionists
20th-century Trinidad and Tobago lawyers
Trinidad and Tobago Hindus
People from Princes Town region
Heads of government who were later imprisoned
Anti-capitalists
North American democratic socialists
Trinidad and Tobago communists
Trinidad and Tobago socialists
Recipients of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman
People educated at Presentation College, San Fernando

Basdeo Panday


In poker and gaming "buying in" is the process of entering a tournament that requires an up-front payment. The size of the payment, otherwise known as the "buy in", determines the total winning prize pool and also contains a fee, otherwise known as the rake, that is paid to the house.

For example, a 50-person capacity tournament could cost $55 entry per player. In poker terms, this could be presented as "$50+$5", meaning $50 goes to the prize pool to pay the eventual winners and $5 (10%) is the rake. In this example, the prize pool would contain $2500 and the house would take a total of $250 (i.e. 10%).

References

Poker gameplay and terminology
https://www.pokerdictionary.net/glossary/buy-in/

Buying in (poker)


Inconstant was a wooden full-rigged sailing ship built in 1848 at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia which later became known as "Plimmer's Ark" and played an important role in the development of Wellington, New Zealand. The ship's hull remains in Wellington today as an important archaeological site.

Built by George Old at Big Bras d'Or, Nova Scotia Inconstant was one of largest wooden ships ever built in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and the largest ship built by Old, a shipbuilder who started with schooners before focusing mainly on brigs. The ship was sold to owners in London, England and made a voyage to Australia carrying immigrants. On a subsequent Australian voyage, she was wrecked at Wellington, New Zealand in 1851 when she put in for water and ran aground.

After the ship was deemed too badly damaged to sail again, the hull was purchased by John Plimmer, an entrepreneur later known as "the Father of Wellington". The hull was converted to a prominent wharf on the Wellington waterfront where it became known as "Plimmer's Ark". Linked to the shore by a bridge the ship served as one of the first piers in Wellington with the interior serving as a warehouse and auction room. It also served as a bonded customs store, immigration pier and office for the first Wellington harbourmaster. A light mounted at the seaward side of the ship became the first harbour light in Wellington.

The hull later became a ship chandlery and gradually became landlocked between 1857 and 1860 as the Wellington waterfront was expanded. Inconstant became surrounded by Lambton Quay, Customhouse Quay and Willis Street in a wedge shaped piece of land. The upper works were demolished in 1883 and the lower hull disappeared under the first Bank of New Zealand. In the late 1990s when a new commercial development ('Old Bank Arcade') was built on the bank site, the remains of the hull were discovered and excavated by archaeologists. The lower bilges of the ship were found, running  from bow to stern. Several important early Canadian shipbuilding features were documented including the use of birch for main ship timbers some of which still bore layers of birch bark. The bow of the hull was preserved under glass and displayed with various associated artifacts in the arcade of the new development.

Kirkcaldie & Stains opened for business on 9 December 1863 in a portion of the Ark named Waterloo House.

References

John Parker, Cape Breton Ships and Men, (London: Hazell Watson & Viney, 1967) p. 75, p. 178.

External links
Plimmer's Ark website
 Parks Canada Ship Information Database Registry Information, ship Inconstant, official no. 9012761
 "Plimmer's Ark", Museum of Wellington
 Peter Wells, "The Ship Under the Old Bank Building" City, My City

Maritime history of Canada
Maritime history of New Zealand
Wellington City
Buildings and structures in Wellington City
Tall ships of Canada
Individual sailing vessels
Ships built in Nova Scotia
Victorian-era merchant ships of Canada
Sailing ships of Canada
History of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality
Archaeological sites in New Zealand
Full-rigged ships
Wellington Harbour
1850s in Wellington

Inconstant (ship)