A company or "yellow" union is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer and is therefore not an independent trade union. Company unions are contrary to international labour law (see ILO Convention 98, Article 2). They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2), due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

Some labour organizations are accused by rival unions of behaving as "company unions" if they are seen as having too close or congenial a relationship with the employer or with business associations, and even if they may be formally recognized in their respective jurisdictions as bona fide trade unions, they are usually rejected as such by regional and national trade union centres. In a study of one such organisation, this form of company union was observed to rarely or never strike, exert relatively little energy in resolving individual workplace disputes, and undercut other unions by bargaining for well beneath industry-standard terms, and was characterised thus:
"[...] an accommodationist, or 'company,' union—an opportunistic, pariah organization that allows employers who would otherwise face a 'real' union (i.e., traditional, militant) a convenient union-avoidance alternative."

International law

A "company union" is generally recognized as being an organization that is not freely elected by the workforce, and over which an employer exerts some form of control. The International Labour Organization defines a company union as "A union limited to a single company which dominates or strongly influences it, thereby limiting its influence." Under the ILO Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) Article 2 effectively prohibits any form of company union. It reads as follows:

National laws

France
The first yellow union in France, the Fédération nationale des Jaunes de France ("National Federation of the Yellows of France") was created by Pierre Biétry in 1902. The yellow color was deliberately chosen in opposition to the red color associated with socialism. Yellow unions, in opposition to red unions such as the Confédération Générale du Travail, rejected class struggle and favored the collaboration of capital and labor, and were opposed to strikes. According to Zeev Sternhell, the yellow union of Biétry had a membership of about a third of that of the Confédération Générale du Travail, and was funded by corporate interests. Moreover, also according to Sternhell, there were close relationships between Pierre Biétry and Maurice Barrès and the Action Française, making the yellow union of Biétry a precursor of fascist corporatism. During the Nazi occupation of France, unions were banned and replaced by corporations organized along the fascist model by the Vichy Regime. The labor secretary of Philippe Pétain's administration from 1940 to 1942 was René Belin. After the war, René Belin was involved in 1947 with the creation of the Confédération du Travail indépendant (CTI), renamed  (CGSI) in 1949 as the original acronym was already used by  Confédération des Travailleurs intellectuels. The movement was joined by former members of the Confédération des syndicats professionnels français, a union created by François de La Rocque in 1936. The CGSI declared that it was formed by "des hommes d'origine et de formation différentes [qui] se sont trouvés d'accord pour dénoncer la malfaisance de la CGT communisée" (men of different origins who agreed to denounce the malfeasance of the communist CGT). CGSI developed mostly in the automobile industry, for instance in the Simca factory of Poissy.

In 1959, the CGSI became the Confédération Française du Travail (CFT), led by Jacques Simakis. It was declared a representative union on January 7, 1959, but the decision was overturned by the State Council on April 11, 1962, following a lawsuit by the Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC) based on the funding of CFT by companies. In 1968, it organized demonstrations for the "freedom to work" to oppose the strikes organized by the CGT. In September 1975, Simakis resigned and denounced the links of CFT with the Service d'Action Civique. On June 4, 1977, a commando formed by members of the CFT-Citroën opened fire on strikers at the Verreries mécaniques champenoises in Reims (then directed by Maurice Papon) in a drive-by shooting, killing Pierre Maître, a member of the CGT. Two other members of the CGT were injured. Following this incident, the CFT changed its name into Confédération des Syndicats Libres (CSL). In the continuity of the company union of Biétry, the CSL is in favor of the association of capital and labor, is opposed to Marxism and collectivism, and denounces the French Communist Party as a civil war machine. The number of adherents of CSL was never published, but in professional elections, it obtained from 2% to 4% of the votes. In October 2002, the CSL disappeared as a national union as a result of lack of funds. It called its supporters to join the Force Ouvrière union in the professional elections. In the automobile industry, the CSL remains as the Syndicat Indépendant de l'Automobile (Independent Automobile Workers' Union).

United States
Company unions were common in the United States during the early twentieth century, but were outlawed under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act § 8(a)(2) so that trade unions could remain independent of management. All labor organizations would have to be freely elected by the workforce, without interference.

In 1914, 16 miners and family members (and one national guardsman) were killed when the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado. This event, known as the Ludlow massacre, was a major public relations debacle for mine owners, and one of them—John D. Rockefeller Jr.—hired labor-relations expert and former Canadian Minister of Labour William Lyon Mackenzie King to suggest ways to improve the tarnished image of his company, Colorado Fuel and Iron. One of the elements of the Rockefeller Plan was to form a union, known as the Employee Representation Plan (ERP), based inside the company itself. The ERP allowed workers to elect representatives, who would then meet with company officials to discuss grievances.

In 1933 the miners voted to be represented by the UMW, ending the ERP at Colorado Fuel and Iron. Company unions, however, continued to operate at other mines in Pueblo, Colorado and Wyoming, and the ERP model was being used by numerous other companies. (The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was organized in part to combat the company union at the Pullman Company.)

In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) was passed, dramatically changing labor law in the United States. Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA makes it illegal for an employer "to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it." Company unions were considered illegal under this code, despite the efforts of some businesses to carry on under the guise of an "Employee Representation Organization" (ERO).

In the mid-20th century, managers of high-tech industry like Robert Noyce (who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968) worked to rid their organizations of union interference. "Remaining non-union is an essential for survival for most of our companies," Noyce once said. "If we had the work rules that unionized companies have, we'd all go out of business."

One way of forestalling unions while obeying the Wagner Act was the introduction of "employee involvement (EI) programs" and other in-house job-cooperation groups. One company included them in their "Intel values," cited by employees as reasons why they didn't need a union. With workers integrated (at least on a project level) into the decision-making structure, the independent union is seen by some as an anachronism. Pat Hill-Hubbard, senior vice-president of the American Electronics Association, said in 1994: "Unions as they have existed in the past are no longer relevant. Labor law of 40 years ago is not appropriate to 20th century economics." Author David Bacon calls EI programs "the modern company union".

In 1995, pursuant to a report from the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, Republicans in the U.S. Congress introduced and voted for the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act of 1995 (known as the "TEAM Act"). The bill would have weakened federal regulations against employer establishment and control of employee involvement programs. Although the bill indicated that EI plans should not be used specifically to discredit or prevent union organization, trade unions in the United States vehemently opposed the bill. Jim Wood, an AFL–CIO leader in Los Angeles, said the "Team Act actually would take us backward to the days of company unions." President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill on 30 July 1996.

Calls to legalize company unions are rare, but New York University law professor Richard Epstein, in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal on September 11, 2018, called for the repeal of Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA.

China
Trade unions in the People's Republic of China are often identified as government unions, by virtue of their frequent close relationship with national planning bodies. Although market reforms are changing the relationship between workers and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (China's sole national trade federation), critics such as U.S. presidential candidate and activist Ralph Nader maintain they are "government-controlled with the Chinese communist party turning them into what would be called 'company unions' in the U.S."

Russia
In many Post-Soviet states, including the Russian Federation, the economic collapse of the early 1990s brought a sharp decline in labor activity. As a result, official union structures often function as de facto company unions.

Japan

Company unions are a mainstay of labor organization in Japan, viewed with much less animosity than in Europe or the United States. Unaffiliated with RENGO (the largest Japanese trade union federation), company unions appeal to both the lack of class consciousness in Japanese society and the drive for social status, which is often characterized by loyalty to one's employer.

Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), as both a political party and a federations of different trade unions in Hong Kong, has been adapting a political stand which are mostly inclined to the Hong Kong and Beijing Government. Therefore, HKFTU is sometimes classified as a company union, and a Pro-Beijing political party.

Mexico
In the 1930s, unions in Mexico organized the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM). The state of Nuevo Leon, however, coordinated its workers into sindicatos blancos ("white unions"), company unions controlled by corporations in the industrialized region.

Guatemala
In 1997, the government of Guatemala received a loan for 13 million USD from the World Bank to privatize its seaport, electrical grid, and telephone and postal services. Canada Post International Limited (CPIL), a subsidiary of Canada Post, and its partner International Postal Services (IPS), was contracted to manage the privatization process. In anticipation of union resistance, CPIL-IPS agents reportedly used company unions, along with bribery and death threats, to ensure a smooth transition.

Company unions are also prevalent among the maquiladoras in Guatemala.

Theory
Supporters of independent trade unions contend that company unions face a conflict of interest, as they are less likely to propose large-scale pro-worker changes to employment contracts—such as overtime rules and salary schedules—than independent unions. At least one economist advances the idea that in the first part of the 20th century, many companies were hesitant to adopt the company union model for fear that it might lead to support for an independent trade union. A 2002 World Bank publication cites research from Malaysia and India which produced conflicting results as to the wage differential provided by trade unions compared to company unions. Malaysia saw improved wages through independent unions, while India did not. The authors indicate the latter "may reflect the specific circumstances that prevailed in Bombay at the time of the study." Marcel van der Linden states that company unions are "heteronomous trade unions that never or rarely organize strikes" and are mainly established to "keep 'industrial peace' and prevent autonomous trade unions."

Proponents of company unions claim they are more efficient in responding to worker grievances than independent trade unions. Proponents also note that independent trade unions do not necessarily have the company's best interests at heart; company unions are designed to resolve disputes within the framework of maximum organizational (not just company) profitability. For example, economist Leo Wolman wrote in 1924: "[T]he distinction ... between trade unions and other workmen's associations is frequently a vague and changing one. What is today a company union may tomorrow have all of the characteristics of a trade union."

In their wide-ranging 2017 study of the Canadian company union CLAC, geographer Steven Tufts and sociologist Mark Thomas draw a distinction between multiple categories of organisation commonly called "company unions", arguing that it is a mistake to regard the company union phenomenon as purely or essentially pro-business and anti-worker (or necessarily beholden to any specific business), and that rather they should be seen as occupying one end of a spectrum of possible relationships between business and labour:  the "accommodationist" end. A defining feature of "accommodationist" or company unionism is that it "seek[s] compromise with employers and capital in the first instance", that is to say, it holds a priori that workers are not generally in competition with employers, and should not organise to take action in despite of, or demand significant concessions from, employers in order to achieve better employment conditions. They "explicitly advocate for collaborative relationships with employers and disparage conflict as a means of achieving gains for workers from the outset."

Though all trade unions do in fact compromise with employers as a matter of arriving at collective agreements, the accommodationist attitude more broadly, and the company union as a specific adoption of that attitude, maintains that workers should not exert any strictly independent collective agency with regard to their employment. This insistence against the legitimacy of independent worker agency often extends beyond the confines of the workplace, and company or accommodationist unions often seek to dispute the legitimacy of the trade union movement as a political movement at large. This brings them into conflict with traditional trade unions in multiple ways; because these aim to organise workers democratically at their jobs in order to pursue their own collective self-interest, as distinct and separate from the interests of the employer; and doubly because traditional trade unions often view workers' struggles as interrelated with broader social-political struggles, and encourage unionised workers to see themselves in solidarity with one another and with broader struggles for justice in society.

In particular, because accommodationist or company unions therefore have no intrinsic means of contesting for the rights and wellbeing of workers beyond what the employer is simply willing to offer (since they don't believe in striking for demands), and beyond what the law already provides for or guarantees (since they don't believe that unions should campaign or lobby for political change or mount legal action), this conflict with "real" unions is not merely ideological, but necessarily practical as well: accommodationist unions organise in direct opposition to existing autonomous trade unions, and generally seek to expand by raiding their shops and locals, with the often explicit goal of supplanting them as the "official" or preferred union recognised by the employer to represent workers, thus setting themselves up as eventual company unions proper. This aggressive practice they then rationalise via recourse to the same accommodationist theory and rhetoric: according to the logic of accomodationism, traditional militant trade unions can be said to have no one but themselves to blame if an employer would rather bargain with a company union than with one which organises worker power to fight for gains.

See also
US labor law
UK labour law
 Employers Group, which, as the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, promoted company unions in California

Notes

References
Aidt, Toke and Tzannatos, Zafiris. Unions and Collective Bargaining: Economic Effects in a Global Environment. Washington, D. C.: The World Bank. . Online at World Bank Publications. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Bacon, David (n.d.). "The New Face of Unionbusting". Online at David Bacon Photographs & Stories. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Berman, Edward (1935). "The Pullman Porters Win". The Nation. Vol. 141, No. 3659, p. 217. Online at the New Deal Network. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Bessemer Historical Society (n.d.). "Colorado Fuel and Iron - Historical Outline". Online at the Bessemer Historical Society. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Coats, Stephen (1991). "Made In Guatemala: Union Busting in the Maquiladoras". Multinational Monitor. Volume 12, Number 11. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
"Colorado Fuel and Iron Corp. — Company History" (n.d.). Baker Library Historical Collections. Online at the Harvard Business School. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Democratic Leadership Council (1997). "The TEAM Act". Talking Points, July 24, 1997. Online at the Democratic Leadership Council. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Hatsuoka, Shoichiro (1982). "Review Article: Organised Workers & Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan". Japan Quarterly, No. 1, January–March 1982. Online at the Global Labor Institute. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
International Labour Organization (2005). "Company union". ILO Thesaurus 2005. Online at the International Labour Organization. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
La Botz, Dan (2007). "Santiago Rafael Cruz, Labor Organizer For U.S. Union, Killed In Mexico". Mexican Labor News & Analysis. Vol. 12, No. 4. Online at United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Nader, Ralph (2004). "Wal-Mart Ways". November 28, 2004. CommonDreams. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Reid, Joseph D. Jr. (1982). "Labor Unions and Labor Management: 1900-1930". Online at Business and Economic History Online. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Riddell, John (2005). "Review: David Mandel's 'Labour After Communism': Auto Workers and their Unions in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus". International Viewpoint, IV365. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Skinner, Michael (2006). "Post-Colonial? Canada Post and the privatization of Guatemala". October 6, 2006. Online at The Dominion. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Smith, Jim. "TEAM Act threatens labor". Online at L. A. Labor News. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.

United States Congress (1935). National Labor Relations Act. United States Code, Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II. Online at the National Labor Relations Board. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.
Wolman, Leo (1924). The Growth of American Trade Unions, 1880-1923. J. J. Little & Ives Company. Online at Google Book Search. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.

ja:企業別労働組合

Company union


Nava Bharat (or Navabharat; , ) is a Hindi-language daily newspaper published through 14 editions from the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. Founded in 1934, Navabharat has the sixth highest readership according to Indian Readership Survey ('09 R1) in India amongst Hindi newspapers. With its sister newspapers Central Chronicle and Navarashtra, published in English and Marathi respectively, Navabharat has three supplements: Suruchi, Glamour, and Awakash.

History

Nava Bharat was launched on 8 February 1934 by Shri Ramgopal Maheshwari (1911–1999), a Gandhian freedom fighter, journalist, and promoter of Hindi language. Maheshwari served as its Editor-in-Chief for 65 years. It started as a bi-weekly publication in Nagpur, and soon became a daily newspaper; Navabharat has set its boundaries to different parts of the country. The bi-weekly since its inception have participated in the freedom movement and bore the brunt of the British Government. In 1942 during 'Quit India Movement' Navabharat risked its existence for its extensive coverage. During this period, the police and secret services kept a close watch on its activities, raided the press and also imprisoned the founder.

Navabharat commemorated the launch of its Jabalpur edition in the year 1950. In the mid nineteenth century, Navabharat launched its Bhopal, Raipur and Indore editions. The 1980s and 1990s saw the launch of a Bilaspur edition in Chhattisgarh, of a Gwalior edition in Madhya Pradesh, and of Pune, Satara and Mumbai editions in Maharashtra.

Navarashtra
Navabharat added another majorly spoken language in their bout with their Marathi daily 'Navarashtra' in the year 2000 from the central India. Navarashtra now gets published from three centers Nagpur, Mumbai and Pune along with many other rural areas. Navarashtra has 9 hyper local editions as well and 3 supplements Gunjan, Mayuri and Kshitij.

Central Chronicle
The English daily of Navabharat Media group known as Central Chronicle was started from Bhopal in 1957. Central Chronicle started expanding in the post-independence era. In 1984, the Central Chronicle Bilaspur and Raipur editions were launched.

Digital Presence
Navabharat entered the digital world so that the news reaches their readers on time with their convenience. They started publishing E-Papers for Navabharat and Navarashtra as substitutes for the print copy. Navabharat and Navarashtra also have their separate Web Portal. They also have three applications namely Navabharat Shorts, Navabharat App and Navarashtra App which are available for both the iOS & Android devices. Navabharat and Navarashtra are available on the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

Social Initiatives
An organisation must never ignore its responsibilities towards society and should take necessary steps for the benefit of society. Like many other newspapers Navabharat, has also undertaken some responsibilities and social initiatives to create awareness in the society. Latur earthquake caused the firm to organize a relief camp in order to provide food and shelter to the victims of the disaster. Also in the year 1991 when the Mowad flood in Nagpur district, affected thousands of lives, as a part of social responsibility, the organization allied funds and contributed to the affected to rebuild their houses and start all over again. Navabharat to create awareness in the society conducted health checkup camps free of cost for every class of the society. Navabharat also conducted zero load shedding where they helped to solve the load shedding issues which were faced by the people of Nagpur. Many other initiatives and campaigns were conducted by the organization such as the 'No Parking Board', Healthy Mornings, Wall graffiti, Zero Mile Campaign, and Swachh Nagpur Sundar Nagpur have turned out to be great examples of social responsibility and awareness among the society.

Community Networks
Navabharat provides a platform to the communities to come together and connect. This has resulted in the genesis of Suruchi, Gurukul, Second Innings, Gen Nex & Udaan. Community networks help people to come together.

Editions
NavaBharat is published from the following places:

References

External links
 Nava Bharat News Portal
 Nava Bharat website

Hindi-language newspapers
Newspapers published in Maharashtra
Newspapers established in 1934
Mass media in Madhya Pradesh
Daily newspapers published in India
Mass media in Chhattisgarh
Mass media in Nagpur
Mass media in Indore
Mass media in Ujjain
Newspapers published in Mumbai
1934 establishments in India

Nava Bharat


A birth defect (or congenital disorder) is a defect in a baby at birth, or which develops in the first month of life. It is neutral as to whether the cause is genetic (inherited birth defect) or environmental (causes in the environment, that is, outside the foetus).

If a condition is said to be "congenital", that is neutral language. Often it is not known what causes a condition found at birth. In common use, it is often redirected to "birth defect". That term is also neutral as to cause.

There are two main types of congenital defect. The first is caused by genetic abnormalities, which are hereditary. The second may be caused by conditions (such as infectious diseases) which a baby may get. However, we may not know what caused the condition.

Sometimes doctors may find out that a baby has a congenital disorder before its birth. They use prenatal diagnosis and screening tests, such as amniocentesis.

Genetic defects

Lethal or damaging genes
Some gene alleles (versions of a gene) can damage the baby.

Conditions like dwarfism are nearly always genetic in origin. One type, achondroplasia, happens when a child's bones does not grow correctly. Another type is caused by pituitary malfunction, where the pituitary gland, which puts out growth hormones, does not work properly.

Many genetic disorders are caused by mutations (or changes) in gene alleles. Mutations can cause development to go wrong, or a simple biochemical deficiency (the body does not have enough of an important chemical). In the case of a chemical deficiency, the problem may be curable. For example, phenylketonuria was a cause of mental retardation. Doctors came up with a simple test to find which babies have this condition. They found that if these children got treated and followed a strict diet, they could get enough of the chemical they needed. Phenylketonuria now causes few cases of mental retardation.

Chromosome defects
Cells divide and copy themselves to produce gametes. Sometimes, errors happen in the way that chromosomes are copied during this process. These errors are then copied again and again as cells keep dividing and copying themselves. The most common chromosomal disorder is Down syndrome ('Mongolism'). This condition happens when a child has three copies of the 21st chromosome, instead of two.

Maternal environment

Infectious diseases
The other main type of congenital disorder is caused by an infectious disease being passed from mother to child. For example, If a pregnant woman gets rubella, her child can have many birth defects. Congenital syphilis was common a century ago, and congenital AIDS occurs today, and is common in some parts of Africa.

Screening and antibiotics has caused the number of infections transmitted by the mother to drop. It is a much smaller proportion than a century ago, despite AIDS. Also, maternal nutritional defects are much rarer, except in countries where food supply is limited. Therefore, genetic disorders have grown as a proportion of the total congenital defects.

Substances taken by the mother

Chemicals
Sometimes mothers take chemicals which cause the embryo damage. Any substance that causes birth defects is known as a teratogen.

Drugs taken by the mother may affect development of the embryo. Pregnant women are not allowed to use some drugs. For example, thalidomide should not be used by a pregnant woman, or it can cause many defects in the foetus.

Lifestyle
If the mother took certain things during pregnancy, these can lead to problems with the baby. Common examples of such things are smoking tobacco, or drinking alcohol. Food related: Pregnant women should eat well. If a pregnant woman does not receive enough folic acid with her food, the child can get neural tube defects.

Sensible precautions
Many women give up cigarettes and alcohol when pregnant, because this gives the embryo a better chance of developing normally.

How common birth defects are
About 3 percent of all babies have what is called a major physical anomaly. This is something that damages the way the baby looks, or how it functions (its physiology).

Birth defects involving the brain are the most common problems. They concern about 10 per 1000 live births, compared to heart problems, at 8 per 1000, kidney problems at 4 per 1000, and limbs at 1 per 1000. All other physical anomalies together occur in 6 per 1000 live births. The human brain has had changes and expansion fairly recently in evolutionary terms.

Birth defects of the heart have the highest risk of death during childhood. They are the cause of 28% of infant deaths due to birth defects. chromosomal abnormalities and respiratory abnormalities each account for 15%, and brain malformations about 12%. About 10% of deaths in children are because of a genetic disease. This is (in modern times) more than the number of deaths caused by infectious diseases.

China Birth Deformity Monitoring Centre says that one baby with birth defects is born every 30 seconds in China.

Miscarriages
Pregnancies which do not come to term (miscarriages) have similar causes to birth defects. Many will be due to failures in the genetics controlling development of the embryo.

Most clinically apparent miscarriages (two thirds to three-quarters in various studies) occur during the first trimester. Chromosomal abnormalities are found in more than half of embryos miscarried in the first 13 weeks.

A pregnancy with a genetic problem has a 95% probability of ending in miscarriage. Genetic problems are more likely to occur with older parents; this may account for the higher miscarriage rates observed in older women.

Related pages
 List of genetic disorders

References

Birth defect


Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The larger of the city's two other commercial districts (Midtown and Buckhead), it is the location of many corporate and regional headquarters; city, county, state, and federal government facilities; Georgia State University; sporting venues; and most of Atlanta's tourist attractions. It measures approximately four square miles, and had 26.850 residents as of 2017.  Similar to other central business districts in the United States, it has recently undergone a transformation that includes the construction of new condos and lofts, renovation of historic buildings, and arrival of new residents and businesses.

Geography
Downtown is bound by North Avenue to the north, Boulevard to the east, Interstate 20 to the south, and Northside Drive to the west. This definition includes central areas like Five Points, the Hotel District, and Fairlie-Poplar, and outer neighborhoods such as SoNo and Castleberry Hill.

The Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADID) organization, though, defines a much smaller downtown area measuring just one and two tenths square miles.  This area is roughly bound by North Avenue to the north, Piedmont Avenue and the Downtown Connector to the east, Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Courtland Street, and Edgewood Avenue to the south, and the railroad tracks to the west.  This area only includes the core central business district neighborhoods of Fairlie-Poplar, Five Points, the Hotel District, Centennial Hill, and South Downtown.

History

The history of downtown began in 1826 with Wilson Lumpkin and Hamilton Fulton surveying a possible canal route between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Milledgeville, Georgia's capital at the time.  In 1833, Lumpkin, who had become governor, requested that the state legislature charter three railroad lines.  By 1836, the state-financed Western and Atlantic Railroad, linking the middle of Georgia to the other states north and west, was granted a charter by the legislature, which was signed into law by Lumpkin.  As a result, the town named Terminus was founded in 1837, named for the end of the railroad line.  Terminus received a name change in 1842 when the town's 30 inhabitants voted to change the town's name to Marthasville, in honor of Governor Lumpkin's daughter.

By 1845, John Edgar Thomson, chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad, suggested that Marthasville's name be changed. The first suggestion was "Atlantica-Pacifica", which was shortened to "Atlanta".  In 1847, Atlanta was incorporated, with the town limits extending in a one-mile (1.6 km) radius from the mile marker at the railroad depot.

By the outbreak of the Civil War, Atlanta was a major railroad hub and manufacturing center, making it a target for the Union Army.  In 1864, General William T. Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground during his March to the Sea,  making Atlanta the only major American city to be destroyed by war.

Atlanta's first resurgence began during Reconstruction.  In 1868, Georgia's state capital was moved to the city from Milledgeville.  By the 1920s, a downtown business sector ringed by residential districts had emerged.

Professional sports came to Atlanta in 1965 with the construction of Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium and the relocation of the Braves from Milwaukee.  The National Football League awarded the city the Falcons expansion team in 1966.  The Hawks arrived in 1968, even though Omni Coliseum, the city's basketball arena, did not open until 1972.  Two of the teams continue to play their home games downtown at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Philips Arena.

Business growth in the 1970s resulted in significant development in Downtown, most notably in Peachtree Center and the Hotel District. Economic development in these areas shifted the commercial center of the city to an area along Peachtree Street that was north of Five Points, however, despite the construction of the MARTA central station there in 1975. By the mid-1980s, Peachtree Center had become the core of a dedicated hotel-convention district that lay at the heart of the Downtown economy, even as the remainder of Downtown Atlanta deteriorated markedly.

The closure of Underground Atlanta in 1979 due to an increase in crime contributed to perceptions that Downtown was dangerous, and the 1980s saw a significant decline in population. By 1990, Five Points was a "vacant shell of its former self," while Downtown as a whole was largely an "archepelagic assemblage of fortified enclaves inhabited in the daylight hours by government office workers, conventioners, and college students, and in the night by a substantial population of homeless persons."

The 1996 Olympic Games, along with the transformation of Georgia State University from a commuter school to a traditional college, initiated a resurgence of Downtown that continues today. They resulted in Centennial Olympic Park, which was built as a physical memorial to the games in the former industrial area west of Five Points. In the following decade, Centennial Olympic Park spurred the creation of a Downtown tourist district anchored by the World of Coca-Cola, the Georgia Aquarium, the CNN Center, the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and the College Football Hall of Fame. Following the 1996 games, Georgia State University president Carl Patton, an urban planner, initiated a university-led transformation of Downtown that sought to make Georgia State "a part of the city, not apart from the city." Dubbed the Main Street Master Plan, Patton's vision has been executed through billions of dollars of urban construction, boosting Downtown's economy and population.

On March 14, 2008, at approximately 9:40 pm Eastern Daylight Time, an EF2 tornado hit Downtown with winds up to . It caused damage to Philips Arena, the Georgia Dome, Centennial Olympic Park, the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the CNN Center, and the Georgia World Congress Center. It was the first time a tornado touched ground in Downtown since weather record keeping began in the 1880s. While there were dozens of injuries, there was only one fatality.

Cityscape

Downtown contains some of the tallest buildings in Atlanta. The tallest building in Atlanta, the Bank of America Plaza building, is situated between Midtown Atlanta and Downtown. Rising at , Bank of America Plaza is also the tallest building in any of the U.S. state capitals, and one of the tallest buildings in the United States outside of New York City and Chicago.

Downtown is the heart and the largest of the three business districts of the city. This area contains striking architecture dating as far back as the 19th century. Some of the most famous and/or tallest buildings in Downtown include:
Westin Peachtree Plaza
Georgia-Pacific Tower
Flatiron Building
SunTrust Plaza
191 Peachtree Tower
Centennial Tower (or known as 101 Marietta)
Equitable Building
Healey Building
Bank of America Plaza (Atlanta)
Candler Building (Atlanta)
Hurt Building

Neighborhoods

Downtown is divided into nine subdistricts:
Castleberry Hill
Centennial Hill
Fairlie-Poplar
Five Points
Hotel District
Luckie Marietta
Peachtree Center
SoNo (south of North Avenue)
South Downtown

Economy
Downtown contains over  of office space; combined with Midtown as the central business district they make up over 48 million sq ft, more than the CBDs of Dallas, and Miami.  Downtown's economy is also driven by its government facilities, venues, and retail options.

Governmental facilities
The Federal government maintains a strong presence in Downtown.  The U.S. Census Bureau has its Atlanta Regional Office in the Centennial Tower and the Atlanta Regional Census Center in Suite 1000 in the Marquis Two Tower in the Peachtree Center.  The National Transportation Safety Board operates the Atlanta Aviation Field Office in the Atlanta Federal Center in Downtown Atlanta. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Building was built and "designed and constructed to accommodate the rapidly expanding volume of the Postal Service, which was then oriented around a single, central processing facility."

The Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center is the ninth largest federal building in the United States and the largest in the southeast. It "houses 5,000 employees for dozens of federal agencies and combines four distinct structural elements in central downtown, equaling ."  The Richard B. Russell Federal Building, a  mixed-used office building, contains the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and offices for several other federal agencies, including the Department of Energy's regional office.

Further north in the Fairlie-Poplar district of Downtown is the U.S. Court of Appeals.  This court takes federal cases from the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. It is officially named the Elbert P. Tuttle U.S. Court of Appeals building, named after a former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (the predecessor court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit).

Downtown is also marked by its state, county, and city government facilities.  The Georgia State Capitol, the seat of the government for the State of Georgia, is located South Downtown. Its gold dome is visible from the Downtown Connector.  The Fulton County Government Center, the seat of the Fulton County Government, is located on Pryor Street.  The Fulton County Courthouse is located directly across the street from the Fulton County Government Center. A few blocks away from the U.S. Court of Appeals is the State Bar of Georgia building, the former location of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta before it moved to its Midtown location in 2001.

Venues and convention centers
Downtown is home to most of the city's major sporting venues. Mercedes-Benz Stadium is home to the Atlanta Falcons, the city's NFL team, and Atlanta United FC, the city's MLS team. Mercedes-Benz Stadium also hosts major college football events, including the annual Aflac Kickoff Game, the SEC Championship Game, the Celebration Bowl, and the Peach Bowl. In its vicinity is State Farm Arena, the home of the Atlanta Hawks, the city's NBA team. It is located directly across Centennial Olympic Park Drive from the CNN Center. Just south of Interstate 20 are the Georgia State University baseball, basketball, and football stadiums—the latter built from the legacy of the defunct Centennial Olympic Stadium and Turner Field.

The Tabernacle, located on Luckie Street, is a music concert hall built in 1910 for the Tabernacle Baptist Church. In 1996 it was converted into a House of Blues Club for the Olympics. It was renamed "The Tabernacle" in 1998. The concert hall is four stories and can seat 2600.

AmericasMart is a wholesale trade center consisting of four buildings totaling seven million square feet. The Mart hosts several trade shows every year including Market Wednesday, Atlanta Apparel, Atlanta Spring Immediate Delivery, and The Atlanta International Gift and Home Furnishings Market. Some permanent showrooms are open daily, though many are open only part of the time or during trade shows.

Clustered around the Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the CNN Center, the Georgia World Congress Center is a state-owned convention center.  Opened in 1976, it was the first state owned and operated major convention center in the United States. As the fourth largest convention center in the United States and with  of space, more than a million people attend conventions at the Georgia World Congress Center annually, and as many 125,000 people attend a single event.

Retail
Located near the MARTA Five Points Station, Underground Atlanta is Downtown's shopping and entertainment district. During the 1920s, streets in the area were raised above the ground (and the railroad tracks) for a better flow of traffic. Under these viaducts is a district for entertainment and shopping. It contains retail stores, restaurants that serve a variety of different foods, and several nightclubs in Kenny's Alley.  The Mall at Peachtree Center, located on Peachtree Street, has 60 specialty shops, including six full-scale restaurants, as well as a regular food court, a conference center in the South Tower. It also includes the Peachtree Center Athletic Club, which contains a  full service athletic facility. Transit access is provided MARTA's Peachtree Center station that is directly connected to it.

Diplomatic missions
The Consulate-General of Argentina, The Consulate-General of Germany, Consulate of Belgium, and the Consulate-General of South Korea are located in Peachtree Center. The Consulate-General of the United Kingdom is located in the Georgia-Pacific Tower.

Parks

Woodruff Park, named after Robert W. Woodruff, is a  park in Downtown located a block away from Five Points. The park is the location of the iconic Phoenix Memorial, which memorializes Atlanta's rise from the ashes of the Civil War.  Built as a legacy of the 1996 Olympic Games, Centennial Olympic Park, located on  area of Downtown, is the largest downtown park in the United States developed in the last 25 years.

A famous part of the park is the Fountain of Rings, the world's largest interactive fountain utilizing the Olympic symbol of five interconnecting rings. The park hosts many events, such as music concerts and a fireworks display for the Independence Day holiday. Hurt Park with its lighted fountain was an attraction in the 1940s and 1950s, and is a reminder of a bygone time.

Attractions
Just north of Centennial Olympic Park is the Georgia Aquarium, the world's third largest aquarium, after Marine Life Park in Singapore built in 2012 and the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China built in 2010. The Georgia Aquarium remains the largest aquarium in the United States and in the Western Hemisphere, with more than  of fresh and marine water. It is listed as one of the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die".

The World of Coca-Cola, situated near the Georgia Aquarium at Pemberton Place, is a permanent exhibition to the history of Coca-Cola. Downtown is in the process of bringing new attractions to the area, particularly in the area clustered around Centennial Olympic Park. In June 2008, Atlanta was selected for the future home of the National Health Museum. It will be near Centennial Olympic Park where it is estimated to attract between 1.1 and 1.4 million visitors per year.

Education

Georgia State University, a four-year public research institution, has been a major force in Downtown's resurgence.  Downtown has benefited from the flurry of GSU-related construction and land acquisitions as the institution undergoes its transformation from a commuter school to a traditional university.  In the early 2000s, under then-president Carl Patton, the university undertook the creation of a master plan that would make GSU "a part of the city, not apart from the city."  The resulting $1 billion master plan has led to 14 new or renovated university buildings, including academic structures, student dormitories, dining halls, and sporting facilities.  The result is a reinvigorated Downtown, especially in the areas around Woodruff Park and Sweet Auburn.

Transportation

Downtown is a transportation hub for the entire region.  The Downtown Connector runs north and south through the district. The Connector is the primary freeway artery for the city. Downtown is also served by Interstate 20, which creates the southern border of Downtown. Downtown also has many surface streets that serve as alternatives to the Downtown Connector.

MARTA's east–west and north–south subway lines converge in the middle of Downtown at the Five Points station. The North-South Line has four additional stops at Garnett (in South Downtown), Peachtree Center, and Civic Center (in SoNo). The east–west line has two additional stops at Dome/GWCC/Philips Arena/CNN Center and Georgia State.

See also
Peachtree Street
Midtown Atlanta (Central financial and residential district of Atlanta)
Buckhead (Northern financial and residential district of Atlanta)
List of tallest buildings in Atlanta
List of skyscrapers
Peachtree-Pine shelter
Gentrification of Atlanta
2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak

References

External links

Official Website for the City of Atlanta
Central Atlanta Progress, Atlanta Downtown Improvement District

Atlanta
Neighborhoods in Atlanta

Downtown Atlanta


The People of Freedom (, PdL) was a centre-right political party in Italy. The PdL launched by Silvio Berlusconi as an electoral list, including  and National Alliance, on 27 February for the 2008 Italian general election. The list was later transformed into a party during a party congress on 27–29 March 2009. The party's leading members included Angelino Alfano (national secretary), Renato Schifani, Renato Brunetta, Roberto Formigoni, Maurizio Sacconi, Maurizio Gasparri, Mariastella Gelmini, Antonio Martino, Giancarlo Galan, Maurizio Lupi, Gaetano Quagliariello, Daniela Santanchè, Sandro Bondi, and Raffaele Fitto.

The PdL formed Italy's government from 2008 to 2011 in coalition with Lega Nord. After having supported Mario Monti's technocratic government in 2011–2012, the party was part of Enrico Letta's government with the Democratic Party, Civic Choice and the Union of the Centre. Alfano functioned as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. In June 2013, Berlusconi announced 's revival and the PdL's transformation into a centre-right coalition. On 16 November 2013, the PdL's national council voted to dissolve the party and start a new Forza Italia party; the assembly was deserted by a group of dissidents, led by Alfano, who had launched the New Centre-Right the day before.

History

Background
In the run-up to the 2006 Italian general election there was talk among the House of Freedoms coalition's member parties on merging into a "united party of moderates and reformers".  (FI), National Alliance (AN) and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) all seemed interested in the project. Soon after the election, however, UDC leader Pier Ferdinando Casini, who had been a reluctant coalition partner, started to distance from its historical allies. Another party of the coalition, Lega Nord (LN), showed no interest in the idea, because of its character as a regionalist party.

On 2 December 2006, during a big rally of the centre-right in Rome against Romano Prodi's government, Silvio Berlusconi proposed the foundation of a "freedom party", stressing that centre-right voters were all part of a single "people of freedom". On 21 August 2007 Michela Brambilla, president of the Clubs of Freedom (a grassroot group), registered the name and the symbol of the "Freedom Party" (Partito della Libertà) on Berlusconi's behalf, but none of Berlusconi's allies seemed interested in joining such a party and some leading FI dignitaries looked disappointed.

"Running board revolution"

On 18 November 2007, Berlusconi claimed that his supporters had collected over 7 million signatures on an appeal demanding the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, to call a fresh general election. Shortly afterwards, from the running board of a car in a crowded Piazza San Babila in Milan, he announced that FI would soon merge or transform into a new "party of the Italian people". The new course was thus called the "running board revolution" (rivoluzione del predellino) and this expression soon became very popular both among Berlusconi's supporters and his adversaries.

At the beginning, the fate of FI remained unclear. Later, it was explained that the new party's core would consist of FI, the Clubs of Freedom and other grassroots groups, and that some minor parties of the House of Freedoms would join too. AN leader Gianfranco Fini made very critical statements in the days after Berlusconi's announcement, declaring the end of his support for Berlusconi as candidate for Prime Minister and that his party would not join the new party. Also UDC leader Casini criticised the idea from the start and seemed interested in an alternative coalition with Fini.

Foundation and early years
On 24 January, the Prodi II Cabinet fell as a result of the 2008 Italian political crisis, paving the way for a new general election. The day after Berlusconi hinted that FI would probably contest its last election, and postponed the foundation of the new party until after the election. In an atmosphere of reconciliation with Fini, Berlusconi also stated that the new party could involve the participation of other parties. On 8 February, Berlusconi and Fini agreed to form a joint list under the banner of The People of Freedom (PdL), in alliance with LN.

In addition to Forza Italia and the National Alliance, several minor parties and groups chose to join the PdL: the Clubs of Freedom of Michela Vittoria Brambilla, the Clubs of Good Government of Marcello Dell'Utri, the Liberal Populars (a splinter group from the UDC) of Carlo Giovanardi, the Christian Democracy for Autonomies of Gianfranco Rotondi, the Pensioners' Party of Carlo Fatuzzo, Liberal Reformers of Benedetto Della Vedova, the Italian Republican Party of Francesco Nucara, the New Italian Socialist Party of Stefano Caldoro, the Liberal Democrats (a splinter group from The Daisy) of Daniela Melchiorre, Decide! of Daniele Capezzone, Italians in the World of Sergio De Gregorio, Social Action of Alessandra Mussolini, the Libertarian Right (a splinter group from The Right) of Luciano Buonocore and the Reformist Socialists of Donato Robilotta.

In the 2008 Italian general election, the PdL won 37.4% of the vote, getting elected 276 deputies and 146 senators and becoming the Italian largest party. The PdL was also the first party since Christian Democracy in the 1979 Italian general election to get more than 35% of the popular vote.

On 27–29 March 2009, the new party held its first congress in Rome and was officially founded. Berlusconi was elected president, while Sandro Bondi, Ignazio La Russa and Denis Verdini were appointed national coordinators, Maurizio Lupi organizational secretary and Daniele Capezzone spokesperson.

In the 2009 European Parliament election in Italy, the party won 35.2% of the national vote, returning 29 MEPs.

In the big round of regional elections of 2010, the PdL retained Lombardy with Roberto Formigoni (in coalition with LN), gained Lazio with Renata Polverini (a former leader of the General Labour Union), Campania with Stefano Caldoro (a leading Socialist) and Calabria with Giuseppe Scopelliti (a former AN member). The PdL was also instrumental in the centre-right victories in Veneto and Piedmont, where two presidents of LN, Luca Zaia and Roberto Cota respectively, were elected.

Berlusconi vs. Fini

Between 2009 and 2010, Gianfranco Fini, former leader of the conservative AN and president of the Chamber of Deputies, became a vocal critic of the leadership of Berlusconi. Fini departed from party's majority line on stem cell research, end-of-life care, advance health care directive, and immigration, and he was a proponent of a more structured party organisation. His criticism was aimed at the leadership style of Berlusconi, who tended to rely on his personal charisma to lead the party from the centre, and supported a lighter form of party, which in his mind was to be a movement-party active only at election times, as the original FI and on some respects that of political parties in the United States.

Although some Finiani, such as Italo Bocchino, Carmelo Briguglio and Fabio Granata, shared Fini's views on moral issues and immigration, many others, including Andrea Ronchi and Adolfo Urso, were traditionalist. In fact most Finiani were Southern conservatives who opposed Berlusconi's firm alliance with LN, federal reform and Giulio Tremonti's economic policy. Fini made inroads among the liberal and centrist ranks of the former FI, but he lost the support of most leading members of the former AN, notably including Ignazio La Russa, Maurizio Gasparri and Altero Matteoli, who became close allies of Berlusconi. Others, including Gianni Alemanno and Alfredo Mantovano, found common ground with the party's Christian democrats.

On 15 April 2010 Bocchino launched an association named Generation Italy to better represent Fini's views within the party. Five days later 52 MPs (39 deputies and 13 senators) signed a document in support of Fini and his theses, while other 74 MPs former members of AN, including La Russa, Gasparri, Matteoli and Giorgia Meloni, plus Alemanno, mayor of Rome, signed an alternative document in which they reasserted their loyalty to the party and Berlusconi. On 22 April 2010 the national council of the PdL convened in Rome for the first time in a year. The conflict between Fini and Berlusconi was covered live on television. At the end of the day a resolution proposed by Berlusconi's loyalists was put before the assembly and approved almost unanimously.

Following then, clashes between Fini and Berlusconi became even more frequent and reached their height in late July, when Fini questioned the morality of some party bigwigs under investigation. On 29 July 2010 the executive committee released a document (voted by 33 members out of 37) in which Fini was described as "incompatible" with the political line of the PdL and unable to perform his job of President of the Chamber of Deputies in a neutral way. Berlusconi asked Fini to step down and the executive proposed the suspension from party membership of Bocchino, Briguglio and Granata, who had harshly criticised Berlusconi and accused some party members of criminal offences. As response, Fini and his followers formed their own groups in both chambers under the name of Future and Freedom (FLI).

It was soon clear that FLI would leave the PdL and become an independent party. On 7 November, during a convention in Bastia Umbra, Fini asked Berlusconi to step down as Prime Minister and proposed a new government including the Union of the Centre (UdC). A few days later, the four FLI members in the government resigned. On 14 December FLI voted against Berlusconi in a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, a vote won by Berlusconi by 314 to 311.

Re-organisation and discontents
In May 2011 the party suffered a big blow in local elections. Particularly painful was the loss of Milan, Berlusconi's hometown and party stronghold, where the outgoing PdL mayor Letizia Moratti was defeated by Giuliano Pisapia, a left-wing independent close to Nichi Vendola's Left Ecology Freedom party.

In response to this and to crescent fibrillation within party ranks (especially among Scajoliani and ex-AN members), Angelino Alfano, then minister of Justice, was chosen as national secretary in charge of re-organising and renewing the party. The appointment of 40-year-old Alfano, a former Christian Democrat who had later been leader of FI in Sicily, was unanimously approved by the party executive. However, economy minister Giulio Tremonti expressed his concerns that the nominee would "make us lose votes in the North". On 1 July the national council modified the party's constitution and Alfano was elected secretary with little opposition.

Alfano led the party through a huge membership drive and, on 1 November, announced that more than one million individuals had joined the party. He also drove the party in a Christian-democratic direction. The factions which benefited most from the effort were those of Roberto Formigoni (Network Italy), Ignazio La Russa (Protagonist Italy) and Franco Frattini (Liberamente). The Christian-democratization of the party and the perceived marginalisation of liberals and social democrats led some to leave the party. One of these, Carlo Vizzini, declared: "It seems to me that the PdL is set to become the Italian section of the European People's Party [which already was]. I come from another tradition: I have been secretary of the PSDI and I was one of the founders of the Party of European Socialists. When I joined Forza Italia there were Liberals, Socialists, Radicals. Now everything has changed."

In the midst of the European sovereign debt crisis, on 14 October, following calls by Claudio Scajola and Giuseppe Pisanu for a new government, two deputies close to Scajola, Giustina Destro and Fabio Gava, voted against Berlusconi during a vote of confidence and left the party altogether. On 2 November, Destro and Gava, along with Roberto Antonione, Giorgio Stracquadanio, Isabella Bertolini and Giancarlo Pittelli (who had left the party along with Santo Versace in September), promoted an open letter in which they asked Berlusconi to step down. Contextually, Antonione announced that he was leaving the party. In the following days three more deputies, Alessio Bonciani, Ida D'Ippolito and Gabriella Carlucci, left to join the UdC. In three months, the PdL had lost 15 deputies and 4 senators, including the 7 deputies and 3 senators who launched Force of the South under Gianfranco Micciché.

Berlusconi's resignation

On 7 November 2011 Lega Nord's then-leader Umberto Bossi proposed Angelino Alfano as Berlusconi's successor. On 8 November, during a key vote on a financial statement in the Chamber was approved thanks to the abstention of opposition parties, but Berlusconi got just 308 votes, 8 short of an absolute majority. Subsequently, Berlusconi announced that he intended to step down after the passage of the budget bill. Days of turmoil followed. Not only the party was highly divided, but its numerous factions and groups were divided too. As the appointment of Mario Monti, an independent economist and former European Commissioner, looked very likely, some in the party wanted to support the new possible government (and some even wanted to join it), while others were resolutely against and preferred an early election instead. Alfano, in his capacity of secretary, had to mediate.

Among the party's Christian democrats, Roberto Formigoni, Maurizio Lupi and Raffaele Fitto (Network Italy), Claudio Scajola (Christopher Columbus Foundation), and Giuseppe Pisanu (hence Pisaniani) supported Monti, while Gianfranco Rotondi (Christian Democracy for Autonomies) and Carlo Giovanardi (Liberal Populars) did not. Within Liberamente and among the party's Socialists, Franco Frattini (who threatened to leave the party) and Fabrizio Cicchitto were in favour, while Mariastella Gelmini, Paolo Romani, Maurizio Sacconi, Renato Brunetta and, covertly, Giulio Tremonti were against. The vast majority of ex-AN members (Ignazio La Russa, Maurizio Gasparri, Altero Matteoli, Giorgia Meloni, etc.) was against, while a minority (mainly Gianni Alemanno) was in favour.

On 12 November Berlusconi finally tendered his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano. The executive of the PdL decided to support a government led by Monti under some conditions, the first being that it should not include politicians but only technocrats. The Monti Cabinet took office on 16 November. In the subsequent votes of confidence in the two houses of Parliament, the PdL voted largely for Monti. However, some party members, including Antonio Martino, Gianfranco Rotondi and Alessandra Mussolini, deserted the party. Subsequently, LN broke its ties with the PdL at the national level.

2013 general election
After long deliberation, on 24 October 2012, Berlusconi finally announced that he would not run again for Prime Minister in the 2013 Italian general election. In a written press release, the PdL leader also hinted that the party would select his successor through an open primary on 16 December.

Berlusconi, who praised Monti, seemed to aim at a new centre-right led by Monti and a PdL led by Alfano. On 25 November eight candidates filed the required number of signature in support of their bid: Angelino Alfano, Giorgia Meloni, Giancarlo Galan (who renounced right after), Guido Crosetto, Daniela Santanchè, Michaela Biancofiore, Giampiero Samorì and Alessandro Cattaneo. However, on 28 November, after Berlusconi had expressed doubts on its success, the primary was cancelled altogether. On 6 December Alfano announced that Berlusconi would run again for Prime Minister. As soon as 12 December Berlusconi backtracked and stated that if Monti were to run for Prime Minister as the leader of a united centre-right (including also Luca Cordero di Montezemolo's Future Italy) he would stand aside and support him. The move appeased the pro-Monti majority of the party, while disappointing other party wings.

On 16 December the centrist majority of the party, consisting of several leading factions (Liberamente, Network Italy, Reformism and Freedom, Liberal Populars, New Italy, FareItalia, etc.), rallied in Rome under the "Popular Italy" banner: in presence of Alfano, the bulk of the party expressed its support for Monti and Berlusconi. On the very same day, a group of anti-Monti reformers, led by Crosetto and Meloni, organised a separate rally and espoused opposite views. On 17 December Ignazio La Russa announced he was leaving the PdL to form "National Centre-Right", aiming at representing not just anti-Monti right-wingers, but also the liberals and Christian democrats around Crosetto. On 21 December La Russa's National Centre-Right and the groups around Crosetto and Meloni joined forces and formed Brothers of Italy. To complete the picture of a highly fragmented centre-right, in the previous months there had already been two minor but significant splits from the PdL: on 3 October Giulio Tremonti left to form the Labour and Freedom List, while on 22 November a group of MPs, led by Isabella Bertolini, formed Free Italy.

In early January 2013, after Berlusconi had announced his return as party leader and Monti had refused to join forces with the PdL, the bulk of the party rallied again behind Berlusconi and just a few leading members, notably including Mario Mauro, left to join Monti's Civic Choice party. Most of the centre-right was regrouped around the PdL, which took part to the February general election in coalition with Lega Nord (including the Labour and Freedom List), Brothers of Italy, The Right, Great South (including the Movement for the Autonomies), the Pensioners' Party, the Moderates in Revolution and Popular Agreement.

In the election the PdL obtained 21.6% of the vote (–15.8% from 2008) and the coalition came just 0.3% short of the centre-left. After some inconclusive attempts by Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the Democratic Party, to form a government, the PdL joined Enrico Letta's government of grand coalition, providing five ministers, including Angelino Alfano who was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, two deputy ministers and several under-secretaries.

Revival of Forza Italia
On 28 June 2013 Berlusconi announced the revival of the defunct  and the transformation of PdL into a centre-right coalition.

On 1 August 2013 Berlusconi was convicted for tax evasion and sentenced to four years of imprisonment, the last three being automatically pardoned. On 18 September, when discussing the enactment of a related six-year public office ban, as required by the "Severino law", the Senate committee in charge of elections refused to endorse a PdL resolution relinquishing Berlusconi's ban, as both the PD and the M5S disagreed. On the same day Berlusconi launched the new Forza Italia (FI) and pledged to stay on as its leader in any case. The would-be PdL coalition might include the new FI, Lega Nord and other parties. In fact, in disagreement with the new FI's liberalism, some members led by former mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno, who left the PdL in October 2013, might form a conservative party modelled on the late National Alliance (AN), along with Brothers of Italy and other minor right-wing parties, and eventually join the coalition.

After months of bickering within the party between "doves", supporting Letta's government, and "hawks", very critical of it, on 28 September Berlusconi asked to the five ministers of the party (Angelino Alfano, Maurizio Lupi, Gaetano Quagliariello, Beatrice Lorenzin and Nunzia De Girolamo) to resign from the government over a tax hike. The ministers obeyed, but made clear that they dissented from the decision; Quagliariello and Lorenzin announced that they might not join the new FI, while Alfano described himself "differently berlusconiano". The party's moderates, mainly Christian democrats as Alfano and Lupi (Roberto Formigoni, Carlo Giovanardi, etc.) and social democrats (Fabrizio Cicchitto, Maurizio Sacconi, etc.), sided with the ministers, while the hawks led by Daniela Santanchè, most of whom liberals (Antonio Martino, Denis Verdini, Giancarlo Galan, Renato Brunetta, Sandro Bondi, Niccolò Ghedini, Daniele Capezzone, etc.), supported the exit from the government.

On 2 October a confidence vote, called by Prime Minister Letta, revealed the division within party ranks, to the extent that around 70 PdL lawmakers were ready to split to support the government, in case Berlusconi and the party had decided not to do the same. Faced by this ultimatum, Berlusconi made a U-turn few minutes ahead of the vote and subsequently tried a reconciliation process within the party to avoid the split. The outcome was a clear victory for the doves and the "ministerial faction" of the PdL, who continued to serve in the government. Raffaele Fitto, Christian democrat and leader of the self-proclaimed "loyalists" (the party's mainstream, including Mariastella Gelmini, Mara Carfagna, etc.), supported by Galan and Bondi, announced his disagreement with Alfano's political line and proposed a congress to decide the party's positionment, while the floor leaders, Maurizio Gasparri, Altero Matteoli, Paolo Romani and others came out as "mediators".

On 25 October the PdL's executive committee voted to suspend all the party's activities and proposed the transformation of the current party into the new FI. Consequently, all the leadership roles in the PdL were temporarily revoked and a national council was summoned for 16 November. To approve the executive's proposal over the party's future, a 2/3 majority among voting delegates at the national council was required.

On 16 November 2013 PdL was formally dissolved and replaced by the new FI, while a day earlier a group of dissidents, led by Alfano and including all five PdL ministers, had announced the formation of separate parliamentary groups, called New Centre-Right (NCD).

Ideology and factions

The PdL aimed at combining together the traditions of its two main predecessors,  (FI) and National Alliance (AN), as well as their smaller partners, among them Liberal Populars, Christian Democracy for Autonomies, New Italian Socialist Party, Liberal Reformers, and Social Action. FI, launched in 1994 by Silvio Berlusconi, was joined mainly by former Christian Democrats, Socialists, and Liberals who had seen their parties disappear amid the Tangentopoli scandals. AN, successor of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), had become a respectable conservative party under the leadership of Gianfranco Fini. FI and AN started to cooperate and were the pillars of the centre-right Pole of Good Government, Pole of Freedoms and House of Freedoms coalitions. The "Charter of Values" of the PdL underlined the "Christian" and "liberal" character of the party, presenting it as a defender of traditional values as well as of individual responsibility and self-determination. The document stressed the adherence of the party to the values and the platform of the European People's Party (EPP), its support for European integration and the transformation of Italy into a federal state.

The PdL was a classic example of catch-all party. The party's main cultural strains were Christian democracy and liberal conservatism, but it is not to be underestimated the weight of those coming from the right-wing AN and the relevant role played by former Socialists, who were disproportionately represented in Berlusconi IV Cabinet. Four leading ministers (Giulio Tremonti, Franco Frattini, Maurizio Sacconi, and Renato Brunetta) hailed from the old PSI, while another Socialist, Fabrizio Cicchitto, was the party leader in the Chamber of Deputies. This is not to say that all former Socialists were actually social democrats; for instance, while Tremonti was an outspoken critic of globalisation and is not enthusiastic about labour market flexibility, Brunetta was a free-market liberal and frequently clashed with Tremonti over economic and fiscal policy. Moreover, internal alliances were often not consistent with the previous affiliation of party members. On issues such as end of life, Sacconi, a former Socialist who still claimed to be a social democrat, sided with the party's Christian democrats and the social-conservative wing of the former AN, while several members hailing from the MSI found themselves in alliance with the liberal wing of the former FI. This is no surprise, as the late MSI also had a strong secular tradition, while FI was home to both social conservatives and uncompromising social liberals. On the economy, ex-FI Tremonti was often at odds with ex-FI liberals like Antonio Martino and Benedetto Della Vedova, and was attacked by Giancarlo Galan for being a "socialist".

Traditional values and the social market economy grew of importance in the rhetoric of the new party, partly replacing the small government and economic libertarian ideals expressed by FI. In this respect, Sacconi summarised the economic propositions of the PdL with the slogan "less state, more society"; however, in the PdL there was still some room for Reaganomics, with Berlusconi often making the case for lower taxes and Tremonti for deregulation and against red tape.

Factions (as of November 2011)
The party was home to a wide range of factions, groups and associate parties, whose ideology ranged from social democracy to national conservatism. As of November 2011, the factions, listed by political ideology, were as follows:
Christian democrats. The core of the former  (FI) plus some minor groups (Network Italy, Scajoliani/Christopher Columbus Foundation, Pisaniani, Christian Democracy for Autonomies, Liberal Populars, Christian Reformists, Federation of Christian Populars, and a plethora of local groups). Many party members hailed from the late Christian Democracy: they included Roberto Formigoni, Renato Schifani, Claudio Scajola, Angelino Alfano, Mario Mauro and Maurizio Lupi.
Liberal-centrists. Various groups (Liberamente, Tremontiani, Magna Carta, Dellutriani) presided the centre of the party. Liberamente, led by Mariastella Gelmini and Franco Frattini, represented the bulk of FI, being composed by liberal loyalists of Berlusconi, and was probably the single largest faction within the party.
Liberals. The liberal factions of the former FI (Free Foundation, Popular Liberalism) plus some new groupings (mainly Countercurrent). Leading liberals within PdL ranks were Antonio Martino, Raffaele Costa, Giancarlo Galan and Daniele Capezzone.
Social democrats. The social democrats of the former FI, their organisations (Reformism and Freedom, We Reformers, Italian Reformists, European Reformists), plus the New Italian Socialist Party. Notably, several leading members of the party started their political career in the Italian Socialist Party and some of them still identified themselves as Socialists as members of the PdL: Franco Frattini, Giulio Tremonti, Maurizio Sacconi, Renato Brunetta, Fabrizio Cicchitto and Stefano Caldoro.
Liberal conservatives. The bulk of the former National Alliance (AN)'s main factions (New Alliance, Protagonist Right), as well as people from other parties; Maurizio Gasparri and Ignazio La Russa re-organised their faction into Protagonist Italy, while Altero Matteoli launched the Foundation of Freedom.
National conservatives. The right-wing of the former AN, which was represented by several groups (New Italy, Movement for Italy, Libertarian Right).
Grassroots. Centre-right clubs in the tradition of the early FI (Promoters of Freedom, National Association Club of Freedom, Club of Freedom, Clubs of Good Government).

Factions (as of October 2013)
A part from the above-mention factions, from 2013 four broad groupings were distinguishable:
 Doves (colombe). These centrists, mainly Christian democrats and social democrats, favoured a greater autonomy of the party from Silvio Berlusconi, supported the Letta Cabinet and lead the party from the minority. The doves included Angelino Alfano, Maurizio Lupi, Gaetano Quagliariello, Beatrice Lorenzin, Nunzia De Girolamo, Fabrizio Cicchitto, Roberto Formigoni, Carlo Giovanardi, and, to some extent, Renato Schifani.
 Mediators (mediatori). These centrists, including Renato Brunetta, Maurizio Gasparri, Altero Matteoli, Paolo Romani, Paolo Bonaiuti, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, Osvaldo Napoli and Stefano Caldoro, favoured party unity above everything else.
 Loyalists (lealisti). These supporters of Berlusconi and of the original , including most of the party's liberal conservatives and many Christian democrats, opposed Alfano's line. The loyalists included Raffaele Fitto, Mara Carfagna, Mariastella Gelmini, Mario Mantovani, Francesco Nitto Palma and Renata Polverini.
 Hawks (falchi). These hard-line liberals, including Denis Verdini, Daniela Santanchè, Giancarlo Galan, Sandro Bondi, Niccolò Ghedini and Daniele Capezzone, are the most loyal supporters of Berlusconi and repeatedly tried to convince him to bring down Letta's government. Most of them could have been considered "loyalists" too.

On 15 November, the day before the PdL's dissolution in the new FI, the "doves" left the party to form the New Centre-Right party.

Associate parties
The PdL granted financial support to several minor parties of the centre-right. They contributed one million Euros to the Liberal Democrats whose deputies were elected on the PdL list in 2008, and left the government camp after some months but returned in April 2011. Other parties who received payments from PdL were the Force of the South (€300,000), Christian Democracy for Campania (€144,000), Social Action (€100,000), Christian Democracy for Autonomies (€96,000), the Alliance of the Centre (€80,000), the Movement of National Responsibility (€49,000) and the Federation of Christian Populars (€40,000).

Popular support
The PdL had its strongholds in Southern Italy, especially in Campania, Apulia and Sicily, but its power base included also two regions of the North, Lombardy and Veneto, where the party however suffered the competition of Lega Nord, which controlled the governorships of Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto. The regions governed by a PdL governor in 2013 were just four (Campania, Calabria, Abruzzo, and Sardinia), far less than the Democratic Party and its allies, which controlled twelve.

In the 2008 Italian general election, the party scored over 40% in Campania (49.1%), in Sicily (46.6%), Apulia (45.6%), Lazio (43.5%), and Calabria (41.2%). In the 2013 Italian general election, in which the PdL suffered a dramatic loss of votes, the party ran stronger in Campania (29.0%), Apulia (28.9%), and Sicily (26.5%).

The electoral results of the PdL in the regions of Italy are shown in the table below. As the party was launched in 2007, the electoral results from 1994 to 2006 refer to the combined result of the two main precursor parties,  and National Alliance.

Electoral results

Italian Parliament

European Parliament

Leadership
President: Silvio Berlusconi (2008–2013)
Secretary: Angelino Alfano (2011–2013)
Coordinator: Sandro Bondi (2009–2013), Ignazio La Russa (2009–2012), Denis Verdini (2009–2013)
Organisation Secretary: Maurizio Lupi (2009–2013), Daniela Santanchè (2013)
Spokesperson: Daniele Capezzone (2009–2013)
Party Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Fabrizio Cicchitto (2008–2013), Renato Brunetta (2013)
Party Leader in the Senate: Maurizio Gasparri (2008–2013), Renato Schifani (2013)
Party Leader in the European Parliament: Mario Mauro (2009–2013), Giovanni La Via (2013)

Symbols

See also
 List of political parties in Italy

References

Bibliography

Defunct political parties in Italy
Political parties established in 2009
2009 establishments in Italy
Political parties disestablished in 2013
2013 disestablishments in Italy
Christian democratic parties in Italy
Conservative parties in Italy
Social conservative parties
Liberal parties in Italy
Liberal conservative parties
Political career of Silvio Berlusconi

The People of Freedom


SIMILE (Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments) was a joint research project run by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries and MIT CSAIL and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project ran from 2003 to August 2008. It focused on developing tools to increase the interoperability of disparate digital collections. Much of SIMILE's technical focus is oriented towards Semantic Web technology and standards such as Resource Description Framework (RDF).

History
SIMILE stands for Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments. It was born out of DSpace, the open source system digital repository for scholarly materials developed at MIT. DSpace, which is now used at a number of research institutions, archives scholarly publications, making it possible to federate the collections of the various holding libraries and combining materials across disciplines.
The SIMILE project grew from the need to support metadata schemas in research materials which has been described in various domain-specific ways, and provides a capability beyond Dublin Core.
The challenge for DSpace and other digital libraries is to assist communities in dealing with different schemes, vocabularies, ontologies and metadata and to provide research services to their users.

SIMILE projects

See also
 Haystack, a related project from the MIT which mostly concentrates on personal information management
 Freebase

References
 Butler, Mark H., Gilbert, John, Seaborne, Andy, Smathers, Kevin 2004, Data conversion, extraction and record linkage using XML and RDF tools in Project SIMILE. Digital Media Systems Laboratories HP Laboratories, Bristol, United Kingdom.
 Huynh, D., Mazzocchi, S., & Karger, D. Piggy Bank: experience the semantic web inside your web browser, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Cambridge, MA.
 Mazzocchi, S., Garland, S. & Lee, R. 2005, SIMILE: practical metadata for the semantic web, O'Reilly xml.com, 26 Jan.
 Project SIMILE: Semantic Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments 2005, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July, Massachusetts, United States.

External links
 SIMILE Project
 An independent "spin-off" from the SIMILE project
 W3C Semantic Web Activity

Semantic Web
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

SIMILE


Hamilton Harbour, formerly known as Burlington Bay, lies on the western tip of Lake Ontario, bounded on the northwest by the City of Burlington, on the south by the City of Hamilton, and on the east by Hamilton Beach (south of the Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway) and Burlington Beach (north of the channel). It is joined to Cootes Paradise by a narrow channel formerly excavated for the Desjardins Canal. Within Hamilton itself, it is referred to as "Hamilton Harbour", "The Harbour" and "The Bay". The bay is naturally separated from Lake Ontario by a sand bar. The opening in the north end was filled in and channel cut in the middle for ships to pass. The Port of Hamilton is on the Hamilton side of the harbour.

History

Hamilton Harbour was known among the Mississauga Anishinaabek as Wiikwedong simply meaning "at the Bay".

Early Settlers to the area called the bay Lake Geneva. The bay was formally renamed Burlington Bay in 1792 by John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, for the former name of the town of Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Prior to this, the bay was also known as Washquarter, notably as a landmark to delineate the extent of the Between the Lakes Treaty No. 3 negotiated between Simcoe and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in 1792.

Access to the bay was important for the early water transportation and industrial development of the area, including Dundas, Ontario, which had an early but ultimately unrealized lead over both Burlington (Brant's Block) and Hamilton. Over the years, the bay was roughly treated by its littoral residents. Constant infilling, particularly in the North End of Hamilton, damaged fresh water streams and the wildlife they supported. Channel dredging tended to stir up natural and unnatural sediments, further disrupting the ecological land balance in the area. Chemical, industrial and thermal pollution, especially as a byproduct of the burgeoning steel industry after the 1890s, continued to degrade the environment.

The waterways in Hamilton have not always been polluted. The north-end of the Harbour used to be a regular swimming spot for working-class families. The pollution of Hamilton Harbour waterways is caused by industrialization and, by proxy, urbanization, which came to be a major problem by 1917. Many working-class families were overcome by health hazards when dumping sewage into the inlets and the bay itself became a regular occurrence. Laurel Sefton MacDowell writes in her book An Environmental History of Canada that, "As early as the 1860s, a fishery inspector at Hamilton Harbour discovered that fish found along the shore tasted of coal oil and that dead ducks and muskrats were coated with oil from two refineries." By the 1950s, city officials had deemed Hamilton Harbour unfit for any recreation use and shut down all beaches.

In 1919, a Federal Order-In-Council changed the name of Burlington Bay to Hamilton Harbour.

By the 1970s, the International Joint Commission, which governs water usage in the Great Lakes Basin, and other agencies began to recognize the need for action. Greater water quality awareness, improved pollution controls, and an economic downturn all served to improve conditions in the 1980s. In the 1990s, beautification and ecological control were well underway. These measures included sealing the Lax Lands, contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants, under a cap of clay; landscaping Bayfront Park and Pier 4 Park; and keeping common carp from entering Cootes Paradise. The visible and measurable improvement in water quality in Burlington Bay was showcased in 1994 by the very public swim of Sheila Copps, a local MP and federal cabinet minister. Access and recreational use of the bayfront has improved, and swimming is now allowed at two beaches in the harbour: Bayfront and Pier 4.

Hamilton Harbour is listed as a Great Lakes Areas of Concern in The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada. Part of the remediation plan is to reclaim the harbour's wetlands.

While most of the carp in the harbour had been eradicated by early 2021, Maclean's reported that numerous goldfish had been found, presumed to have come from the dumping of pet fish by the public. One expert stated that the goldfish "is the ultimate survivor of difficult conditions ... it can feed on blue-green algae blooms that native species cannot—blooms that appear with increasing frequency in Hamilton Harbour".

Randle Reef
Randle Reef, a site in the southeast corner of the harbour, is considered the most dire of identified water pollution issues awaiting remediation in Canada. The environmental containment facility, about 7.5 hectares in size, covers in-situ about 130,000 m3 of sediments contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and contain about 500,000 m3 of dredged PAH contaminated sediments. The containment facility was constructed in 2018 using two walls of steel sheet piling. Later in 2018, contaminated sediment surrounding the containment facility was dredged and placed inside the facility. The wastewater will be treated by an on-site water treatment system using sand filtration and granular activated adsorption and discharged back into the harbour. Last, an environmental cap will be built of layers of several materials including aggregates of various sizes, geotextile and geogrid, wickdrains, and surface materials (asphalt and/or concrete), placed sequentially from bottom to top in order to contain toxic sediment in the facility. The clean-up project had an estimated cost of $138.9 million, with the containment expected to have a 200-year lifespan. Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, each committed $46.3 million, with the final third of funding coming from the City of Hamilton ($14 million), the City of Burlington ($2.3 million), Halton Region ($2 million), the Hamilton Port Authority ($14 million), and Stelco ($14 million). On March 9, 2022, Environment and Climate Change Canada announced the completion of the clean-up project where over 615,000 m3 of contaminated sediment was managed. The final stage of the project, the installation of the environmental cap, will be completed by 2025, which will provide new port land that will be managed by the Hamilton–Oshawa Port Authority.

Burlington Shipping Canal

The opening from Hamilton Harbour to Lake Ontario is referred to as the Burlington Shipping Canal. It was proposed in 1824 and opened in 1826.

Burlington Canal Lift Bridge is a lift bridge the spans over the canal.

Infrastructure
The bay today is crossed by two highways: 403 & Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW). The Burlington Bay James N. Allan Skyway (nicknamed "The Skyway") bridge, part of the QEW, crosses the border between Hamilton Harbour and Lake Ontario. The 403, York Street and a number of railways cross Hamilton Harbour on a glacial sandbar (similar in formation to the present day beach strip to the east) and separates Cootes Paradise from Hamilton Harbour. The harbour also houses the Port of Hamilton which is the busiest Canadian Great Lakes port and handles in excess of 10 million tonnes of cargo per year.

Legend
The bay is thought by some to host a North American cryptid, described by witnesses as a large snake-like creature. A diver drowned in the bay during the filming of a low-budget horror film titled Marina Monster on August 21, 2005.

References

External links
Hamilton Harbour (1826-1901), by Ivan S. Brookes
Burlington Canal Lift Bridge
Randle Reef

Bays of Ontario
Landforms of Hamilton, Ontario
Environmental disasters in Canada
Bays of Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario

Hamilton Harbour


David Barker Stevenson (November 17, 1801 – March 3, 1859) was a businessman and politician in Canada West.

He was born in Clinton, New York in 1801. After his father died, he moved to Hallowell Township in Upper Canada to work in his uncle's general store. After his uncle's death in 1833, he continued to operate the store in partnership with his aunt until 1848, when he formed a partnership with Thomas Nichol. In 1834, he became a magistrate in the Prince Edward District. He also sold timber, real estate and operated a distillery. In 1836, he became the president of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company in the Prince Edward District. He was a district councillor for the township from 1842 to 1849 and district warden from 1847 to 1849. In 1848, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for Prince Edward; he was reelected in 1851 and 1854. He was also mayor of Picton in 1854. He supported John A. Macdonald in the assembly. He opposed representation by population and supported Kingston as capital of the province.

He died in Picton in 1859.

External links
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

1801 births
1859 deaths
Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from Canada West
Mayors of places in Ontario
People from Prince Edward County, Ontario
Canadian magistrates

David Barker Stevenson


Coryphantha ramillosa is a rare species of cactus known by the common names bunched cory cactus and whiskerbush. It is native to the border region between Texas in the United States and Coahuila in Mexico. Because it was believed to be rare and threatened by a number of processes, it was federally listed as a threatened species of the United States in 1979.

The range and abundance of this plant are not well known, especially within Mexico, and it may not be as uncommon as was thought in 1979. The cactus occurs in at least seven locations in Texas, several being within the bounds of Big Bend National Park. One of the most recent estimates of abundance in Texas is 5,000 to 10,000 individuals in two counties. The range of appropriate habitat in Mexico covers 2.5 times the amount of land as in Texas. Many of the plants are located in remote areas, which helps protect them from people. A major threat to the species is harvesting by cactus enthusiasts and dealers.

This cactus is generally spherical or cylindrical in shape, and unbranched. It grows up to about 9.5 centimeters long and is textured with protruding areoles up to 2 centimeters tall. The areoles bear curving spines, the central one thick, dark, and up to 4.3 centimeters in length. The smaller spines are light in color, often white. The showy flower occurs at the apex of the cactus body and measures up to 6.5 centimeters long. Its tepals are pink, lightening to pale pink or white near the center, and sometimes with darker mid-stripes. The rounded fruit is pale to dark green, fleshy and juicy and 1 or 2 centimeters long. The plant blooms in the summer, with an extended blooming period when rainfall is higher.

The cactus occurs in desert scrub habitat, generally in dry, rocky, barely accessible areas where few other plants grow. The substrate is limestone.

The plant is being propagated and studied at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona.

References

External links
USDA Plants Profile for Coryphantha ramillosa

ramillosa
Cacti of Mexico
Cacti of the United States
Flora of the Chihuahuan Desert
Flora of Coahuila
Flora of Texas
Endangered biota of Mexico
Endangered flora of the United States

Coryphantha ramillosa