The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source.

This page details related allegations, reactions, and investigations, in Europe.

European Union
Many senior EU figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers scandal. The European Commissioner for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici, has said that the European Union as a whole had a "duty" to prevent the kind of tax avoidance uncovered in the Panama Papers scandal. Moscovici told reporters the use of offshore companies to hide what he called "shocking amounts" of financial assets from tax authorities was "unethical". He estimated that the tax shelters resulted in an annual loss of some €1 trillion in public finances, adding that the European Commission has attempted to tighten tax rules across the union since November 2014 due to the Luxembourg Leaks scandal, also revealed by the ICIJ, and that he hoped the extent of the Panama Papers revelations would spur countries to action.

In a 2013 letter, unearthed by the Financial Times to the then president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron said that offshore trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as shell companies.

Andorra
The Panama Papers revealed that the Minister of Finance of Andorra, Jordi Cinca, while he was CEO of Orfund SA, maintained an offshore company called Mariette Holdings Inc, until its dissolution in 2002 for fear of discovery of his participation in these businesses. The business activities of Orfund had ties to the blood diamond trade, and the refining and sale of African gold. This company closed shortly before the civil war in Ivory Coast.

The opposition demanded his resignation as a result. In response Cinca said that "if their connection would affect the Government of Andorra, will step down". Still, he did not.

Austria
Austria's financial market authority has announced that they will audit two Austrian banks that were mentioned in the Panama Papers – Raiffeisenbank International (RBI) and . It will be specifically examining whether the banks have complied with their obligation to prevent money laundering. Hypo Vorarlberg subsequently announced that while they have complied with all laws in the past, they are planning to retreat completely from the offshore sector.

Bulgaria

In 2018, investigative media Bivol.bg accessed the Panama Papers under an agreement with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Later, they published a story about the offshore company Viafot which is attempting to acquire a key asset of Bulgaria's defense industry: the arms producer Dunarit. The Panama Papers show that Viafot is owned by Alexander Angelov who is the lawyer of media mogul Delyan Peevski. Other Bulgarian media had reported how all state institutions help Viafot acquire Dunarit through illegitimate means. However, no inquiry was opened by Bulgaria's General Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov.

Initially, in 2016, access to the Panama Papers was granted only to journalist Alexenia Dimitrova. However, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Bulgaria) raised concern that Dimitrova worked for the communist secret services, so her work with the papers may be biased.

Cyprus
Central Bank of Cyprus officially declared: "With regard to press reports citing leaked documents, known as the Panama Papers, the Central Bank of Cyprus announces that it is assessing the information to the extent that it may concern the Cypriot banking system and taking, where necessary, appropriate action." A Cypriot online paper said "The Cyprus link stems from the fact that Fonseca runs an office in Cyprus and, more specifically, in Limassol. In a chart, the leaks name Cyprus as a tax haven (countries that offer little or no tax), although it has a corporate tax rate of 12.5%, the same as Ireland."

Denmark
In September 2016, Danish tax authorities purchased Panama Papers data on 320 companies and some 500-600 individuals to investigate. Although the data came from an anonymous source, it was vetted with credible sample data.

France

French financial prosecutors opened a probe, and former President François Hollande declared that tax evaders would be brought to trial and punished. Also as a result of the leak, France restored Panama to its list of tax havens, from which Panama had recently been removed.

Former French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, who spearheaded a crackdown on tax fraud while in office, was a client of Mossack Fonseca, legal partners central to the global Panama Papers tax evasion and money laundering scandal. Leaked documents of the law firm's revealed Cahuzac's chain of ownership of a Seychelles company, Cerman Group Limited, incorporated in 2009. When France investigated 2013 allegations by Mediapart that in 2000 Cahuzac had held undeclared assets in an account first in Switzerland, then Singapore, he resigned his cabinet post, protesting his innocence, but admitted a few months later that he indeed had hidden €600,000 in a UBS account and then moved it to keep it hidden, "while continuing to lead France's clampdown on tax evasion". The French Socialist Party unanimously voted to expel him a week later. Spurred by the April 2013 Cahuzac affair, President Hollande created the Parquet national financier (PNF), a judiciary investigation unit specializing in large-scale fraud and corruption investigations.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder and long-time leader of the far-right-wing Front National (FN) and now a member of the European Parliament, already was the subject, along with his daughter Marine Le Pen and his staff, of a PNF tax fraud investigation. Drawing official scrutiny were an undeclared HSBC account containing €2.2m in gold and coins, managed from Geneva by an aide through a trust based in the British Virgin Islands which was closed and then moved to the Bahamas in 2014; allegations of overbilling; misuse and comingling of campaign funds; and tax evasion. Jean-Marie Le Pen is also suspected of using his European Parliament funds for the campaign and administrative expenses of his French political party. Jean-Marie Le Pen is mentioned in the documents, along with his daughter Marine Le Pen, who is the current party leader, and Frederic Chatillon, an FN insider who is also a close friend of Marine. Among the three of them, they may have hidden as much as a million pounds in offshore accounts.

Greece
The Panama Papers confirmed that the politician Stavros Papastavrou, who was advisor of former Prime Ministers Kostas Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras, had been a member of the council of the Panamanian foundations, Green Shamrock Foundation and Diman Foundation, from 2005 to 2014. In 2006, he became deputy chairman of the Aisios Foundation, that still exists today. However, Papstavrou resigned from the Aisios Foundation in 2012.

A number of Greek families with significant art collections were implicated in this scandal.

Iceland

Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, elected after the 2008 banking collapse in Iceland, had pledged to clean up corruption in the banking system. But when Sigmundur Davíð took his seat he did not disclose his 50% interest of Wintris, a company that owned bonds of one of the bankrupt banks, nor divest himself of it, until the day before a new law took effect on January 1, 2010 that would have required him to declare this conflict of interest. He sold his share to his wife, who owns the other half. The couple both come from wealthy families. When they bought Wintris he was working as a journalist and she is an anthropologist. Until his failure to disclose the asset, he apparently broke no laws. But the country remembers the 2008 financial crisis all too well and thought it had put it in the past. Since Sigmundur Davíð negotiated on behalf of Iceland with creditors of failed Icelandic banks, the discovery that Sigmundur Davíð's wife is a bondholder caused so much outrage that 22,000–24,000 people attended an anti-government protest outside the parliament on April 4, 2016, almost 8% of the population. Sigmundur Davíð suggested a snap election, but the other members of the coalition government did not want elections, just his resignation. On April 5, 2016, Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson announced his resignation.

The Reykjavik Grapevine and the news site Kjarninn revealed that President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson had connections to Lasca Finance Limited, registered in 2005 in the British Virgin Islands. Ólafur Ragnar had categorically denied any personal or family ties to companies in tax havens. The parents of his wife, Dorrit Moussaieff, operated the company 1999–2005. The financial statements of the Moussaieff family business show it received nearly £7 million ($10.2 million US, €9.1 million) in interest payments from Lasca during 2000–2005. In 2005 Moussaieff Jewelers Limited sold its 10% stake of Lasca to S. Dorrit Moussaieff's deceased father and her mother, now 86 years old and the registered owner of the Lasca ownership stake. Dorrit and her sisters Tamara and Sharon will inherit her fortune, considered among the largest in the world.

Bjarni Benediktsson, Iceland's finance minister and the chairman of Sigmundur Davíð's coalition partner, comes from one of Iceland's wealthiest families. He confirmed that he owned 33% of Falson & Co., a Seychelles shell company founded in 2005 to purchase real estate in Dubai. It was still active in 2009, when Bjarni was already a member of parliament with financial disclosure requirements. He said he registered the company with tax authorities, and he was not aware that it was registered in the Seychelles. Minister of the Interior Ólöf Nordal and her husband had powers of attorney for Dooley Securities S.A., an offshore company located in Panama. She said that the company was founded for her husband but was never used, so she did not think she had to disclose it. Hrólfur Ölvisson, the managing director of Sigmundur Davíð's Progressive Party, says the Mossack Fonseca companies that list his name have been inactive a very long time, and were legal.

Businesswoman Ingibjörg Pálmadóttir and her husband Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson have for several years financed their business dealings through a Panamanian company, Guru Invest, which owns shares in retailer Sports Direct through Rhapsody Investments (Europe), based in Luxembourg. Guru Invest paid around US$16 million to Glitnir bank after it crashed to cover the debt of Gaumur, one of Jón Ásgeir's companies, and loaned ISK 100 million to Jón Ásgeir's company Þú Blásól through an offshore company he owns named Jovita. Asked by journalists at Kjarninn where that money came from, Ingibjörg did not reply. Ingibjörg is the primary owner of the 365 media group, which owns the Icelandic news outlets Vísir.is, television channel Stöð 2 and radio stations Bylgjan,  and FM 957, none of which seem to be reporting this disclosure.

Ireland

The Irish Times newspaper handled the Irish component of the leak. Prominent Irish names listed included golfer Pádraig Harrington, property developer Sean Mulryan and the manager of Irish rock group U2, Paul McGuinness.  The lists also included Stanley Watson, a senior partner of Ireland's largest tax-law firm, Matheson, who have led the creation of many of the Irish corporate tax management tools used by US multinationals in Ireland to avoid billions in US taxes.  The list also included Irish Fine Gael political advisor, Frank Flannery.

Italy

On April 6, 2016, Italy's Procura of Turin ordered the Guardia di Finanza to investigate the 800 Italians contained in the Panama Papers' documents.

Former long-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had been already convicted for tax evasion and expelled from the Parliament, was included in the papers. Other notable people whose names are mentioned in the Papers include entrepreneurs Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Flavio Briatore, Adriano Galliani, and actor Carlo Verdone.

An investigation by ICIJ partner The Namibian found that the imprisoned mafioso Vito Roberto Palazzolo shielded his finances from Italian, Namibian and South African authorities with shell companies in the British Virgin Islands set up by a German banker in Hong Kong, Wolf-Peter Berthold, which they also used to transfer control of Palazzolo's assets to his son.

Malta

The Panama Papers linked a minister in the government of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, and the prime minister's chief of staff, Keith Schembri, to shell companies in Panama. Furthermore, Mizzi's wife, Sai Mizzi Liang, who is Malta's trade envoy to China and Consul General for Malta in Shanghai, China, was also named as beneficiary, together with their children, of a trust based in New Zealand holding Mizzi's Panama shell company.

Mizzi, until April 28, 2016 Minister for Health and Energy is listed in the Panama Papers as the owner of a Panama shell company called Hearnville Inc.

Indications in the Maltese press of Mizzi's links to an offshore trust did not prevent Mizzi from being elected deputy leader for party affairs of the ruling Labour Party on February 25, 2016, following a change in the party statutes to enable a sitting MP to be appointed. Mizzi stepped down as deputy leader of the Labour Party on April 28, 2016.

Schembri, a businessman who managed the electoral campaign of the Labour Party in the 2013 Maltese general elections, and serves as chief of staff to Muscat, was reported to hold an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands, and owns an anonymous shell company in Panama, called Tillgate Inc, held by a trust established for him in New Zealand. Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri acquired their shell companies in Panama, Hearnville Inc and Tillgate Inc respectively, via the Mossack Fonseca representatives in Malta, who also tried to open bank accounts linked to the two shell companies of the two politically exposed persons in various jurisdictions. The owner of a third anonymous shell company in Panama, Egrant Inc, whose existence was revealed in the same document referring to the other two companies, remains unknown, although the strict secrecy observed in its acquisition, including the avoidance of e-mail communications and the utilization of communications via Skype, have fuelled strong suspicions that a third top Maltese politically exposed person is involved.

In a 2015 declaration of assets, dated February 8 and submitted to the Maltese Parliament at the end of March 2016, which Muscat said he'd been shown in draft form before the Panama Papers were leaked, Mizzi listed the trust in New Zealand and the shell company in Panama. As of April 28, 2016 a report on the matter commissioned by the Government of Malta by an unnamed international audit firm was still pending. On April 28, 2016 Muscat announced a cabinet reshuffle; Mizzi lost his ministerial portfolio of Health and Energy, but was retained as a minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister.

Malta is the only member of the European Union that have a minister implicated in this scandal and to date. Not withstanding Mizzi and Schembri's involvement in this scandal they still hold very high positions in the Maltese government.  Mark A. Sammut wrote a book about the case, called L-Aqwa fl-Ewropa. Il-Panama Papers u l-Poter (The Very Best in Europe. The Panama Papers and Power).  In October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a blogger who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta, was killed by a car bomb near her home.

Since then Malta, as an EU Member State, has been required to strengthen the transparency of its registers of corporate ownership, showing who ultimately controls every company within its jurisdiction. The Malta Financial Services Authority was demerged from Malta's Registry of Companies in 2018 in order to focus on separate regulatory roles and duties.  The Registry of Companies is a stand-alone agency and is known as the Malta Business Registry.

Norway
The Norwegian Tax Administration expects to demand access to information from DNB (Norway's largest financial services group) about approximately 30 companies formed by DNB that are owned by Norwegians, 20 of whom are living in Norway. 200 Norwegians are on the client list of Mossack Fonseca.

Portugal
The ICIJ's Offshore Leaks Database shows that Portugal had 246 Offshore Entities, 300 Officers, 40 Intermediaries and 175 Addresses linked to the activities described in the Mossack-Fonseca papers, with newspapers reporting the involvement of several politicians, government officials, bankers and company managers. As of May 2017, there were no criminal or judicial consequences for any of the involved.

Russia

The Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the newspapers participating in the project that made the papers public, described the connections of various individuals listed in them to Russian president Vladimir Putin. They quoted Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman and US State Department documents saying that Russia is a "kleptocracy" and a "mafia state" respectively. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported about $2 billion had moved through a network of companies associated with Russian firms and individuals in "just a few years" and the companies appeared to have been used for "questionable business transactions".

Putin has criticized offshore companies as "unpatriotic" on several occasions since 2011 and in 2013 a law was passed banning foreign bank accounts for government officials.

Putin's name does not appear in any of the records released to date, but those of his associates do. Construction billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, musician Sergei Roldugin and business magnate Alisher Usmanov are mentioned in the leaked documents, as are Putin's long-standing friend, billionaire Gennady Timchenko, as well as his press secretary's spouse, his cousin, and former KGB colleagues, as well as several oligarchs connected to Mossack Fonseca shell companies.

Sergei Roldugin, a cellist with the St Petersburg orchestra who is the godfather of Putin's eldest daughter and who has been described as Putin's "best friend", appears prominently in the Panama Papers. According to the leaked papers, Roldugin acquired assets worth at least $100 million, including a 12.5% stake in Video International (Russia's largest television advertising firm), companies that own stock options for some of Russia's biggest companies and the rights to loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2008, a company controlled by Roldugin joined with several other offshore companies to help "another Putin insider" acquire control of Kamaz, Russia's largest truck manufacturer, and obtain investment from German carmaker Daimler AG, $250 million for 10% of Kamaz. Sandalwood, another company in which Roldugin and other insiders have an interest was issued lines of credit between 2009 and 2012 worth $800,000 by Russian Commercial Bank (RCB) in Cyprus, then a wholly owned subsidiary of VTB Bank, largely owned by the Russian state. Panama Papers documents indicate that Roldugin companies received several loans with no collateral, or at very low interest rates, or never repaid. In 2013, several shell companies linked to the brothers Boris and Arkady Rotenberg loaned worth about US$200 million to a company in Roldugin's network. The leaked documents do not show whether they were repaid. Shortly before the loan was granted, Arkady Rotenberg's company had been awarded the tender for the South Stream pipeline project, worth billions. Asked about his companies, Rodulgin said "I have to take a look and find out what I can say and what I can't", and that financial matters are "delicate".

Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called Western reporting of the Panama Papers "Putinophobia", said that they target Putin and are part of a conspiracy against Russia orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of State and others.

Putin denied "any element of corruption", and said his opponents are trying to destabilize Russia. Putin also said: "WikiLeaks has showed us that official people and official organs of the US are behind this." On 2016's annual Direct Line with Vladimir Putin, he called the leaked documents "reliable" but confined his comments to Roldugin, saying that Western media did not understand that the musician has spent all his off-shore income on "musical instruments for Russia". Putin also said Goldman Sachs owned shares in the parent company of Süddeutsche Zeitung, which is in fact owned by a Munich family and a German media group. The Kremlin apologized for this "mistake".

Initially, mainstream Russian media almost entirely ignored the leak. Neither state-owned Channel 1 and Rossiya 1, nor privately owned REN-TV and NTV, mentioned the story on April 4, the day the story broke. The minimal coverage of the story ran in the middle of the night on Vesti TV and was in relation to Lionel Messi and Michel Platini. An exception was the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, described as "the ICIJ's Russian partner", which reported on the story both in hard copy and online.

By the end of April OCCRP published analysis of further batch of the leaked documents demonstrating a cash flow to the Rodulgin accounts from the 2007 tax theft of $230m by Moscow tax inspectors uncovered and reported by Sergei Magnitsky.

Spain

On April 15, 2016, José Manuel Soria was forced to leave his post as acting Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism when the Panama Papers revealed that he and his family had maintained several offshore societies on tax havens during the previous decades. Soria initially denied this, but reports kept leaking that contradicted him. On April 14, a company came to light that he had owned on Jersey until 2002, while mayor of Las Palmas. Soria was put in a critical political position as a result of his confusing and changing explanations on the issue, and resigned the next day.

He is not the only prominent Spanish politician who had offshore companies.

Former IMF president Rodrigo Rato, vice-president in the conservative government of prime minister José María Aznar, had more than €3.6 million in two offshore companies. He has been charged by Spain with alleged tax offenses, money laundering and corruption among individuals in other cases of corruption.
Micaela Domecq-Solís, the wife of Miguel Arias Cañete, currently the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy and formerly the EU Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, also opened shell societies.

The Spanish Royal Family is also involved in this tax scandal: Princess Pilar of Borbón, Duchess of Badajoz, sister of former King Juan Carlos I and aunt of the current King, Felipe VI, had an offshore corporation for 40 years, until the abdication of her brother. She assembled a company called Delantera Financiera, in 1974, and was its president and administrator. She initially denied this when her name appeared in the Panama Papers. Her husband, who died in 1991, was secretary-general of the corporation. His son, Bruno Gomez-Acebes, is treasurer and manager of this company. The name of , the count of Ripalda and the brother of Jaime de Marichalar, the former husband of the king's daughter, Elena de Borbón, also appears.

Moreover, in a huge corruption scandal involving the royal house, Iñaki Urdangarin and his business associate in the Nóos foundation, were advised by Mossack Fonseca to move funds.

Two great-grandchildren of the dictator Francisco Franco, Francisco and Juan José Franco Suelves set up registered societies in the British Virgin Islands through Mossack Fonseca. Juan José Franco opened Malini Investments in 1997, being director in 2012 and closed in 2013. He told the newspaper El Confidencial he was "absolutely ignorant". Francisco Franco Suelves, his older brother, also opened Vamfield Alliance Limited in 1997 as a director.

, son of Jordi Pujol, former President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, granted the diversion of a commission of 6.8 million euros from the sale of an office to an opaque society, which repaid, with another offshore company, about 5 million more. His Pujol family, parents and children, are charged with several counts of tax fraud and corruption, among other crimes.

The current wife of former prime minister of Spain Felipe González, María García Vaquero, opened an account in Switzerland for Carmingo Ltd in 2004 in the tax haven of Niue, an island in the South Pacific. The lawyer Cándido Conde-Pumpido Jr., son of former General Prosecutor of Spain and magistrate of the Supreme Court of Spain, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, asked to open a Mossack Fonseca offshore company in 2008, though the transaction wasn't completed. He had intended the offshore company to be an intermediary in a project to build a skyscraper in the capital of Panama, not to hide money.

Francisco Paesa, an important spy for the CNI, while working for the Ministry of Interior, opened an offshore account after faking his death in 1998.

Top bankers and Spanish businessmen used this firm to open accounts and companies: Miguel Blesa, president of Caja Madrid, tried in Spanish courts for numerous cases of corruption, Jesus Barderas, a businessman close to ex-prime minister Felipe González, children of the lawyer Javier de la Rosa, who also is linked to corruption cases, Carlos Ortega, CEO of Pepe Jeans, and families with major hotel chains such as the Riu (RIU Hotels & Resorts), the Escarrer (Meliá Hotels International) and the Martinón (Group Martinón).

Art collectors Marina Ruiz-Picasso and Borja Thyssen have Mossack Fonseca companies. Thyssen's lawyer said his company was fully declared to tax authorities and Ruiz-Picasso declined comment. Other celebrities involved include Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who won an Oscar in 2003 for Habla con ella and with his brother Agustin created a company in 1991 called Glen Valley in the British Virgin Islands. Agustin responded saying he closed the company in 1994 and it paid all of its taxes.

Showbiz personality Carmen Lomana said that after the death of her husband, owner of the offshore company, she took care of it but without knowing anything at all about the business or about tax. Bertín Osborne, host and Spanish singer, and the famous actor Imanol Arias, protagonist of one of the longest and most important series of the Spanish television, Cuéntame cómo pasó, were named. Osborne said his account was legal and that he used it as recommended, to save money. He is also involved in a scandal over fraud to the Treasury, with actress and fellow protagonist on the series, Ana Duato. Juan Luis Cebrián, journalist, co-founder of El País, and CEO of Prisa, a Spanish media conglomerate, owns 2% of Star Petroleum, a related oil corporation with tax havens. After being named, he decided to take legal action against La Sexta, who revealed his involvement in this scandal.

The former president of FC Barcelona, Josep Lluís Núñez, the current vicepresident, Carles Vilarrubí, and Eduardo Fernando de Blas, the vicepresident of Real Madrid, had offshore companies with Mossack Fonseca.

Sweden
The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) said on April 4, 2016, it would investigate the actions of Nordea, one of the largest financial institutions in the Nordic countries, after the Panama Papers revealed the bank's Luxembourg office had helped to set up nearly 400 offshore companies for its clients between 2004 and 2014 in Panama and the British Virgin Islands for their customers.

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) has said that "serious deficiencies" exist in how Nordea monitors for money laundering, and had given the bank two warnings. In 2015 Nordea had to pay the largest possible fine—over five million EUR. In 2012 Nordea asked Mossack Fonseca to change documents retroactively so that three Danish customers' power of attorney documents would appear to have been in force since 2010. The director for Nordea Private Banking, Thorben Sanders, has admitted that before 2009 Nordea did not screen for tax evaders: "In the end of 2009 we decided that our bank shall not be a means of tax evasion," said Sanders. Other Swedish banks are also present in the documents, but Nordea occurs 10,902 times and the next most frequently mentioned bank only occurs 764 times. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) later said that they would also investigate the other three big banks in Sweden: Handelsbanken, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) and Swedbank.

Nordea cut all ties with Mossack Fonseca following an interview with Nordea CEO Casper von Koskull on SVT on April 4.

In response to the leaks, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said he is very critical of Nordea's conduct and role, and Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson characterized the bank's conduct as "totally unacceptable".

Switzerland

On April 6, the federal police searched UEFA headquarters in Nyon as part of a "criminal mismanagement" probe into a Champions League television rights deal signed by FIFA's new president Gianni Infantino. The same day, Geneva's attorney general opened several procedures in reaction to a report about misconduct by Swiss lawyers and trustees.

On April 8, a few hours after the publication of a new series of articles focusing on art hidden behind offshore companies, a prosecutor sequestered a Modigliani worth some $25 million at Geneva Freeport. Litigation in New York alleged the painting had been stolen by Nazis during World War II; the defendants said they did not own it, but the leaked documents show that they control International Art Center, a shell company registered in Panama which does own it.

Yves Bouvier and Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, in litigation over art pricing, both have Mossack Fonseca companies.

The leaked papers also shed light on the ownership of shell companies in protracted litigation in Lausanne over ownership of artwork from the Gstaad chalet of the late Greek shipping tycoon Basil Goulandris.

On April 11, another investigation into the abuse of the name of charities like Red Cross or WWF was launched.

Swiss-based Diacore is a Mossack Fonseca client, and has approximately thirty companies through them. Diacore is run by Daniel Steinmetz, but until recently his brother Beny Steinmetz had a power of attorney for the company. Diacore is part of the Steinmetz Group.

According to ICIJ, 1,339 Swiss lawyers, financial advisors and other middlemen had set up more than 38,000 offshore entities over the last 40 years. These entities listed 4,595 Swiss-linked officers or administrators.

Ukraine

When Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko took office in 2014, a popular uprising had just toppled his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych. Poroshenko pledged to sell his candy business (Roshen) if elected, but leaked documents indicate that on August 21, 2014 he instead had Mossack Fonseca set up offshore holding company Prime Asset Partners Ltd in the British Virgin Islands and moved his company there, roughly two months after the election. The move had the potential to save him millions of dollars on his Ukrainian taxes. Records in Cyprus show him as the firm's only shareholder. Some legal experts say the explanation may be sound; however this isn't making a difference to Ukrainian media making the point that Poroshenko opened his offshore account in August 2014 as Ukrainian soldiers were being massacred by the Russians in Ilovaisk. The Panama Papers report may also have figured in the defeat of a trade deal with the Netherlands in a referendum there on April 6.

Anti-corruption group Transparency International believes that the "creation of businesses while serving as president is a direct violation of the constitution". Also, journalists from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project believe that with the move Poroshenko committed two other illegalities, starting a new business while in office and failing afterwards to report it on his disclosure statements. Poroshenko denied any wrongdoing and a spokesman said the offshore company had no active assets and was a legitimate corporate restructure aimed at helping to sell Poroshenko's Roshen group. Analysts in Ukraine responded that the secretive way Poroshenko set up these accounts was certain to undermine trust in him, his party and Ukraine itself.

The news about Poroshenko's offshore business came as his government campaigned against offshore companies. Oleh Lyashko, leader of the Radical Party, urged lawmakers to begin impeachment proceedings, and even some of his allies backed calls for a parliamentary commission to investigate the allegations.

In the Ukrainian Parliament, relations between the Poroshenko bloc and the People's Front party of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had over previous months already soured, with mutual accusations of corruption. The Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk also announced he would resign over Panama Papers leaks.

United Kingdom

According to The Guardian, "More than £170bn of UK property is now held overseas. ... Nearly one in 10 of the 31,000 tax haven companies that own British property are linked to Mossack Fonseca."

Included among the Panama Paper documents are the names of six members of the House of Lords, several of whom have been donors to Cameron's Conservative Party, as well as other Conservative donors. These include:

 Anthony Bamford: £4 million in Conservative Party donations, made a Conservative life peer in 2013;
 David Rowland: £3.8 million in Conservative Party donations, former party treasurer;
 Fleming Family & Partners: Over £400,000 in Conservative Party donations, including direct donations to David Cameron;
 Juniper Equities Trading: £250,000 loan to the Conservative Party from an offshore fund with an opaque ownership structure;
 Tony Buckingham: £100,000 donation to the Conservative Party;
 Lord Ashcroft: the man who published "piggate" allegations about Cameron;
 Baroness Pamela Sharples (via her Bahamas company Nunswell Investments Limited): made a life peer in 1973;
 Former MP Michael Mates via his company Haylandale: claimed his company "never had any real value" and registered interests with Parliament.

As the United Kingdom still exercises varying degrees of control over British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies which make up a large number of the many tax havens and "secrecy jurisdictions" that exist, pressure mounted on Prime Minister David Cameron to make changes. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Panama Papers "are shining a light on the constellation of offshore centers in the last remnants of the British Empire, from Gibraltar to the British Virgin Islands (BVI)." Of the companies created by Mossack Fonseca which were included in the leaked data, the BVI companies topped the list, with 113,000 of the nearly 215,000 companies that Mossack Fonseca managed or incorporated there. British Overseas Territory Anguilla was 7th on the list.

Cameron criticized complex offshore structures in 2013, saying that it is "not fair and not right what some [companies] are doing by saying 'I've got lots of sales here in the UK but I'm going to pay a sort of royalty fee to another company that I own in another country that has some special tax dispensation.'" He said he would bring up the issue at the G8 summit that year. At the summit, Cameron demanded more transparency, arguing that it would be better for business. In 2014, Cameron asked all Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies to set up an open register of firms and individuals with investments registered in their jurisdictions, but by the time of the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, only Montserrat and Gibraltar had agreed to do so.s

Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn said "The government needs to stop pussyfooting around on tax dodging" and called for "direct rule" to be imposed over British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies that act as tax havens. Former Business Secretary Vince Cable agreed, although former attorney general Dominic Grieve described the proposal as a "bit of a nuclear option" which would "destroy the livelihoods" of BVI inhabitants in the finance industry. The Labour Party also said that Cameron's planned "anti-corruption" summit in May would be "a charade" if Cameron, as chairman of the summit, did not require representatives of all Crown dependencies and overseas territories to attend.

Jennie Granger, a spokeswoman for HMRC, said that the department had received "a great deal of information on offshore companies, including in Panama, from a wide range of sources, which is currently the subject of intensive investigation". She said HMRC had asked ICIJ to share all its data.

Private Eye revealed that Edward Troup, appointed executive chair of HMRC in April 2016, was a former partner with Simmons & Simmons, the London-based legal firm whose clients included the Panama-registered fund created by David Cameron's father, Blairmore Holdings. Papers obtained by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ reveal Simmons & Simmons' close relationship with running offshore companies and major overseas property owners, including an investment company run on behalf of Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, while Troup was its senior tax partner.

Blairmore Holdings, Inc.

Ian Cameron, the late father of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, ran an offshore fund (Blairmore Holdings, Inc.) through Mossack Fonseca that avoided UK taxes for 30 years. His company moved to Ireland after David Cameron became Prime Minister. On April 6, Cameron admitted that he had owned shares in Blairmore, but said he sold his shares before becoming PM.

Prominent politicians criticized the involvement of the Cameron family in the scandal; Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn urged an immediate independent investigation into the tax affairs of Cameron's family as well as tighter laws on UK tax avoidance.

References

Further reading

External links

 A manifest by Panama Papers leaker
 Panama Papers Portal of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (US)
 Panama Papers Portal of Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
 Panama Papers Portal of The Guardian (United Kingdom)
 Panama Papers Portal of Financial Times (United Kingdom)
 Panama Papers Portal of Le Monde (France)
 Panama Papers Portal of Sveriges Television (Sweden)
 Portal of the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) (Africa)
 Panama Papers Portal  of Inkyfada (Tunisia)
 Panama Papers Portal of Semanario Universidad at the University of Costa Rica
 Panama Papers Portal of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
 Panama Papers Portal of Le Desk (Morocco)
 Panama Papers Portal of Reykjavík Media (Iceland)
 Panama Papers Portal of Armando.info (Venezuela)
 New Zealand IR607:Foreign trust disclosure

Europe
Süddeutsche Zeitung

Panama Papers (Europe)


Southern Terminal Redoubt is a historic archaeological site located at Newport News, Virginia. It is a uniquely intact component that represents the southern end of General John B. Magruder's defensive Warwick Line.  It is a relatively small defensive earthwork that constitutes one of the few surviving and undisturbed remnants of the 1862 Peninsula Campaign in Virginia.  It is representative of a major military feat significant to the outcome of the American Civil War and exemplifies diverse types of defensive adaptation. An archaeological investigation of this site could yield new insights into Civil War military architecture.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

References

Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Newport News, Virginia
Redoubts
1862 establishments in Virginia

Southern Terminal Redoubt


The Clone Wars was a period in the Star Wars movies. It was first mentioned in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) and was explored later in several films, books, and television series.

Within the Star Wars franchise, the Clone Wars are a galactic war that lasted from 22 BBY to 19 BBY. The war was fought by the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order on one side against the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Sith on the other. Ultimately, both sides lost and the Galactic Empire was born under Sith rule.

The war began during the events of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and ended in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). In 2008, an animated film called Star Wars: The Clone Wars and a similarly named television series were released. These focused on the events that occurred in between.

Other less prominent media have explored this period as well, such as Star Wars: Clone Wars (an animated series from 2003 to 2005) and comic books focusing on Darth Maul. Several new Star Wars characters were created in this period that have become very popular, such as Ahsoka Tano and Asajj Ventress.

Star Wars

Clone Wars (Star Wars)


Elandsrand (Afrikaans for "eland ridge") is a small mining town approximately  outside Carletonville next to Blyvooruitzicht.

History

Trapped miners event of October 2007

On 3 October 2007, 3,200 mine workers were trapped in the gold mine after an accident blocked a deep (2.2 km) shaft near the bottom. Rescuers used an adjacent shaft to rescue the miners, a spokeswoman for the mine's owner, Harmony Gold Mining, said.

Elandsrand mine is  from Carltonville near Western Deep Levels to the East and Deelkraal to the West. It has twin shafts very close to each other, one being a production shaft, the other a service shaft for men and equipment. The incident trapping the miners occurred in the service shaft when a 15-meter section of compressed air pipe burst and fell to the shaft bottom, in the process damaging steel shaft guides, and electrical lines which cut off power to the hoist on the service cage. Because the service shaft became inoperable, miners were brought up using the production shaft, after changing out the skips for a cage.  The cages in the service shaft are of a 3 deck configuration with a capacity of about 150 personnel, and are capable of operating at speeds of  per hour. The service cage would not be able to fit into the hoisting compartments in the production shaft due to different shaft sizes, and different compartment configurations. Due to this fact a smaller cage with a slower hoisting speed was used in the skip compartments.  As a result, evacuation of the trapped miners took longer than had the miners been able to use the service shaft as an egress. Eventually all the miners were rescued unharmed from the mine.

See also
 Kusasalethu mine
 Merafong City Local Municipality

References

Populated places in the Merafong City Local Municipality

Elandsrand


John Francillon (1744–1816) was a jeweler and lapidary, an English naturalist and an entomologist of Huguenot descent.

Francillon was a London jeweller who was also a dealer in natural history specimens and paintings. He was the agent for John Abbot selling his American bird and natural history illustrations. He maintained a large insect collection. Some of his butterflies appear in the Icones of William Jones. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society.

The Francillon Memo

In September 1812 Francillon was allowed to trace around an unset  blue cushion-shaped diamond in the possession of the diamond merchant Daniel Eliason. Francillon drew the diamond in plan and elevation, coloring the plan drawing to match the deep blue color of the stone. Below the drawings he wrote notes to explain that he had been given permission to draw the gem by its owner, Eliason, and that it was " ... a very curious superfine deep blue Diamond."

"There is other evidence which places a 44-carat blue diamond in England at least as early as 1812." George Frederick Kunz, a distinguished American gemologist, told of finding two detailed sketches of the Hope Diamond made by a Soho lapidary in 1812. As he explained in an article in The Saturday Evening Post, Kunz discovered the sketches in an old book by Pouget that he found one day while browsing in Quartich's bookshop in London.

It is now known that this rare blue diamond was once part of the missing Royal and Imperial crown jewels of France. It was commonly known as the French Blue and had been set into Louis XV's jeweled insignia for the Order of the Golden Fleece. The French Blue had been stolen on 11 September 1792 along with most of the French Crown Jewels and was never recovered.

The Francillon Memo is the first record of the diamond which would come to be known as the Hope Diamond. Francillon's drawing is dated two days after the statute of limitations for recovering French stolen property in the Napoleonic Code had expired. Who sold the stone to Eliason is unclear, as is how long it was in his possession before he allowed Francillon to view and draw it. Also a mystery is who authorized the cutting of the French Blue to form the Hope Diamond.

The Francillon Memorandum says:
"The above drawing is the exact size and shape of a very curious superfine deep blue Diamond. Brilliant cut, and equal to a fine deep blue Sapphire. It is beauty full and all perfection without specks or flaws, and the color even and perfect all over the Diamond. I traced it round the diamond with a pencil by leave of Mr. Daniel Eliason and it is as finely cut as I have ever seen in a Diamond. The color of the Drawing is as near the color of the Diamond as possible. Dated: 19th September, 1812. John Francillon, No. 29 Norfolk Street, Strand, London."

The Francillon Memorandum remains in the Pouget book today, in the George Frederick Kunz Collection of the United States Geological Survey Library in Reston, Virginia. The Pouget book was donated to the USGS as part of Mr. Kunzs' private library after his death in 1933.

Media
 A small image of Francillon's memorandum can be seen at PBS Treasures of the World page which provides details of the Hope Diamond's provenance.
 The Francillon Memo is pictured in highlights for a December 2010 special on the "Secrets of the Hope Diamond" for the National Geographic Channel.

Obituary

"June 23 John Francillon esq. of Norfolk Street Strand a gentleman much esteemed for his amiable manners and conduct throughout life, and possessed of a superb cabinet of foreign insects the assiduous labour and cost of many years."

References

Further reading
 Ian Balfour, Famous Diamonds, London: William Collins & Sons, Publishers, 1987. hardcover, .
 Marian Fowler, Hope: Adventures of a Diamond, Ballantine (March, 2002), hardcover, .
 Kunz, George F., Ray M. B. (1928) "The gem collector in Europe." Saturday Evening Post, 21 January 1928, pp. 33–34, 36, 38.
 Richard Kurin, Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem, New York: HarperCollins Publishers & Smithsonian Press, 2006. hardcover, .
 Patch, Susanne Steinem. Blue mystery: the story of the Hope diamond. [Washington, D.C.]; New York: Abrams, 1999. 92 pages: ill. (some col.); 18 cm. National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., publishers. Includes bibliographical references. .
 Pouget, Jean Henri Prosper. 1762. Traité des pierres précieuses et de la maniere de les employer en parure. Paris: Chez l'auteur [etc.], 1762. 88 pages, 79 leaves of plates: color illustrations; 25 cm. In the USGS Library, Reston, Virginia; the publication is part of the George Frederick Kunz Collection. Library copy 2 includes Francillon Memorandum and diamond illustration dated 19 September 1812. Copy 1 lacks illustration. Notes:  Engraved illustrated t.-p. after original design by J.B. Piauger. Plates engraved by Mlle, Raimbau. "Catalogue des auteurs," p. 35-39.

External links

1744 births
1816 deaths
English jewellers
English entomologists
Fellows of the Linnean Society of London

John Francillon


Halcott Mountain is one of the Catskill Mountains of the U.S. state of New York. It is mostly located in Greene County, with some of its lower slopes in Delaware and Ulster counties. Its exact summit elevation has not been officially determined, but the highest contour line on the mountain is . It is one of the peaks on the divide between the Delaware and Hudson watersheds.

As one of the Catskill High Peaks above  in elevation, a successful ascent of Halcott is required for peakbaggers seeking to join the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club. It is on public land, part of the Catskill Park Forest Preserve, but has no trail. Hikers bushwhack through the relatively open woods to sign the canister at the summit and prove their climb. It is considered one of the easiest of the 13 trailless High Peaks.

Geography

The mountain spreads over a wide area. Most of it is located in the Greene County town of Lexington. Some of its lower eastern slopes are in Halcott to the west, and the tripoint of the three counties is on one of its southern ridges, putting those points south of the Greene County line in either the Ulster County town of Shandaken or Delaware County's Middletown. Most of the land on the mountain in Greene County is part of the  Halcott Mountain Wild Forest, managed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).  The lower western slope is outside the Catskill Park Blue Line, and private tracts are at the base of its slopes in the other two counties. The nearest settlements are the small communities of Fleischmanns and Pine Hill a short distance to the southwest and south and smaller West Kill further away to the north.

On three sides Halcott's slopes are defined by alternating creek valleys and ridges that divide them. The eastern slopes are steeper, falling  into Deep Notch, the pass between it and Mount Sherrill to the east, traversed by state highway NY 42. The south slopes lead more gradually, with a few steep sections, to the Birch Creek valley. On the southwest the ridge with the tripoint continues to a  height of land between Halcott and  Monka Hill, site of the former Grand Hotel. Another, more westerly ridge reaches a  col between Halcott and one of the several South Mountains in the Catskills. Estimates of the mountain's actual summit elevation range to the higher end of the  contour interval, to as high as .

The west slopes make a very gentle grade to the Elk Creek valley, with some steep portions on the northwest at the headwall of Hemlock Gully. To the north a ridge descends gently to  before rising again to the  peak officially unnamed but known as either Northeast Halcott or Sleeping Lion.

Bushnellsville Creek and an unnamed tributary drain the east side of the mountain, both feeding into Esopus Creek, whose waters are impounded downstream for New York City's Ashokan Reservoir before draining into the Hudson. Bushnellsville and its tributary both form scenic waterfalls near the bottom of Halcott's slopes near Route 42. Birch Creek, which rises in the valleys south of Halcott, drains into the Esopus at Big Indian. Elk and Emory creeks (the former via Vly Creek) both drain into Bush Kill, which in turn empties into the East Branch of the Delaware near Arkville.

Geology

Like the Catskills as a whole, a dissected plateau, Halcott was formed not through the upthrust of rock layers but by the gradual erosion of stream valleys in an uplifted region about 350 mya. Its rock layers and bedrock are primarily Devonian and Silurian shale and sandstone. Later glaciation, primarily the Illinois and Wisconsin periods, shaped the slopes of the mountain, smoothing its slopes on the west when the ice was covering it and steepening the east slopes through erosion when the meltwater burst through Deep Notch.

Its soils are part of the Halcott-Vly association, reddish silt loams with a large concentration of fragmented rock. They are shallow and extremely acidic with low water capacity. As a result, they are erosion-prone and rock outcrops are frequent on the mountain slopes.

Flora and fauna

Halcott is extensively forested, primarily in mature northern hardwoods (beech, birch and maple), with some small Norway spruce and red pine plantations at lower elevations and scattered stands of hemlock left over from the era when those trees were heavily harvested for their tannin-rich bark. There is also a stand of paper birch on the southwestern slope of the mountain, as a result of past human disturbance. A 1908 forest fire resulted in a stand of yellow birch in the upper reaches of Hemlock Gully.

The slopes of the mountain were logged to some degree up to an average elevation of , leaving a first-growth area of roughly  on and below the summit. Trees in this area are stunted and twisted by the wind and weather exposure. There are no boreal evergreens, such as balsam fir and red spruce, as found on many other of the other Catskill High Peaks at these elevations. Some boreal herbs, such as wood sorrel, have remained at those elevations.

DEC estimates that there are 49 mammal species, 20 amphibians, 13 reptiles and 71 birds that live on the slopes and ridges. Among the more visible species are big game such as white-tailed deer and black bear. Fishers were reintroduced to the Catskills in the late 1970s; a few are taken by trappers every season. Among bird species, the bald eagles, red-throated hawk and the eastern bluebird (New York's state bird), are the first of which are considered threatened and the latter of concern, are present.

History

Halcott, like the town in which it is partially located, took its name from an early landowner. The west slopes of the mountain were cleared for agriculture to well over  in the early days of settlement; the steeper slopes on the east side were generally not cleared much above the road. The exception to that was one field northwest of the former hamlet of Bushnellsville, which went up to . Old stone walls and foundations remain in the forest on the mountain's lower slopes.

Between the fields and the first-growth forest on the summit is the forestry belt, where trees were cut by local farmers as firewood and hemlocks were harvested so that the tannin in their bark could be used to tan leather, a major regional industry that died out in the late 19th century when most of the accessible groves in the Catskills had been peeled and a synthetic process for making tannin was developed.

After the barkpeeling industry faded, the state created the Forest Preserve in 1885 to protect what was left by mandating that all the land owned by the state in what is now the Catskill Park be kept "forever wild" and not sold, leased or otherwise transferred. In 1894 that section was written into the state constitution. A few years later the state bought the lands around Halcott's summit. The west slope was acquired in 1934, with the state land holding reaching its current size by 1957.

DEC has done little management of the land, since no trail has ever been cut on the mountain and it has not needed to. The area is designated as a Wild Forest, allowing in theory for some intensive use, but that is only because it is too small to be a wilderness area. Under its own guidelines, land above  in wild forests is to be treated as wilderness. The peak has been on the 3500 Club's list since its founding in 1962, and is also popular with hunters as well. In its 2001 unit management plan, DEC raised the possibility of building a trail to connect with another possible westward extension of the Devil's Path over North Dome and Mount Sherrill in the West Kill Wilderness Area to the east, but so far that plan has gone no further.

Access

The most commonly used approach to the summit, since it takes place entirely on public land, starts at the rough parking area on the west side of Route 42 south of Deep Notch, right next to the waterfall on the northern tributary of Bushnellsville Creek, at an elevation of roughly . From here hikers generally follow the ridge to the west, trending a bit southward. Upon gaining the ridge at , they follow it south up mostly gentle slopes to the mountain's summit, where a rough use path runs north–south to the canister, mounted on a cherry tree at the southern end. It is a  ascent via this route, with the round trip covering approximately .

There are no views from the summit when the trees are in leaf, and in other seasons those views to the south are partially obstructed by other surrounding trees. Views may be available from the southern slopes at the top of steep drops.

Access from the south and west follows gentler slopes but requires gaining permission from landowners to cross private landholdings at the mountain's base. From the north it is possible to hike entirely on public land as well via a long approach across Northeast Halcott.

See also

 Catskill High Peaks
 List of mountains in New York

References

External links

Mountains of Greene County, New York
Catskill High Peaks
Mountains of New York (state)

Halcott Mountain


Soldiers Point is a suburb of the Port Stephens local government area in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Located on the southern shores of Port Stephens it is almost entirely surrounded by the port and is a popular location for fishing and boating. While primarily residential, like other suburbs around Port Stephens, it is a popular tourist destination, especially in summer months. It also has numerous community events and family fun days for locals and tourists alike.

Soldiers Point was originally the site of a garrison of soldiers that was established in 1820 to hunt down escaped convicts.

In July 2016, the New South Wales government declared  of the suburb as an Aboriginal place, recognising that Soldiers Point was a special place for cultural, spiritual and historic reasons to the Worimi people.

Notes

References

Suburbs of Port Stephens Council

Soldiers Point, New South Wales


Luciano Quiñones Lugo (born June 22, 1948), is a pianist and a composer of Modern Puerto Rican Danzas.

Early years
Quiñones, was born in the town of San German, Puerto Rico where he also received his primary education. He was musically influenced by his family who taught him the basics in music at a young age. In 1960, he was sent to the Mayagüez free School of Music where he began his formal musical education.

In 1965, Quiñones enrolled at the  Interamerican University of Puerto Rico at San German where he continued his musical instruction. In 1969, he earned a bachelor's degree in music with a concentration in applied piano. He was also awarded "The Most Outstanding Student of the Music Department" medal.

Musical career
After graduating from Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, Quiñones worked as a piano teacher for the Puerto Rican Department of Education. He married Sylvia Rodriguez to whom he dedicated his first danza "A Sylvia" in 1977, when he began his endeavor as a composer. This danza won 2nd prize at the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture competition. By 2014, 33 of his danzas have won prizes, becoming the composer with most awards to date. "El Abanico" (The Fan), the "Official Anthem of the City of Hormigueros" and "Himno a Mayagüez" are a few of the ones to have lyrics, as most were originally composed for piano solo. The latter two of the danzas were adopted as the official anthems of their respective cities. His danza "Linda Mayagüezna", also dedicated to his wife, have been played at the Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. One of his compositions is his danza "Amor Eterno", (Eternal Love) posthumously dedicated to his wife after her death in 2004.

Danza compositions

Some of the danzas composed by Quiñones.:
 Amor Eterno (Eternal Love)
 Aniversario (Anniversary)
 A Sylvia (To Sylvia)
 Campanas Nupciales (Wedding Bells)
 Días Felices (Happy Days)
 El Abanico (The Fan)
 Fantasia en Azul (Blue Fantasy)
 Fiesta de Acabe
 Fiestas de la Candelaria
 Fiestas de Santa Rosa (Festival of Saint Rose)
 Irma
 Isla Hermosa (Lovely Island)
 Linda Flor (Beautiful Flower)
 Linda Mayagüezana (Beautiful Girl from Mayagüez)
 Matices
 Mis Tesoros (My Treasures)
 Nuestro Amor (Our Love)
 Pensando en Tí (Thinking of You)
 Princesita Juguetona (Playful Princess)
 Quinceañera (15th Birthday)
 Renacer (Reborn)
 Sueño de Amor (Dream of Love)
 Sueño Español (Spanish Dream)
 Tarde Gris (Gray Afternoon)
 Tierno Amor (Tender Love)
 Virgencita del Pozo
 Torbellino de Pasiones
 Soñando con tus Besos (Dreaming of your kisses)
 Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián

Later years
Quiñones developed two websites: In 1996, he created "The Home of the Danza" where anyone may listen to some danzas performed by him. He also created "Luciano's Piano Bar" where he performs boleros and modern music.

Recognitions
Quiñones has received the following recognitions:
 Special recognitions from the Mayagüez Lions Club, The City of San German and the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture.
 He was named the adopted son of Mayagüez in 2000
 He was inducted into the Puerto Rican Danza Composers Hall of Fame in 2003.
 The 32nd annual Danza Week of 2004, sponsored by the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture, was dedicated to him.
 The 2008 "Nuestra Música" Festival was dedicated to him on the Danza night.

Quiñones was a music professor at the Mayagüez Free School of Music. He currently participates in the Danza Festival of Mayagüez either as a soloist or accompanist. His wife Sylvia, who was his major source of inspiration and with whom he had two children, Jose Carlos and Jose Ivan, died on November 15, 2004. Quiñones presently resides in Mayagüez and presents his Danza's recital in universities, schools, social and cultural institutions that contract him. He also lectures on the Danza for the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture.

See also

 List of Puerto Ricans

References

External links

1948 births
Interamerican University of Puerto Rico alumni
Living people
People from San Germán, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican composers
Puerto Rican male composers
Puerto Rican musicians
Puerto Rican pianists
Male pianists
21st-century pianists
21st-century American male musicians

Luciano Quiñones


In organic chemistry, an electrocyclic reaction is a type of pericyclic rearrangement reaction. The reaction is electrocyclic if the result is one pi bond becoming one sigma bond or one sigma bond becoming a pi bond.  Electrocyclic reactions share the following properties:

 electrocyclic reactions are driven by light (photoinduced) or heat (thermal)
 the reaction mode is determined by the number of pi electrons in the part with more pi bonds
 an electrocyclic reaction can close a ring (electrocyclization) or open a ring
 the stereospecifity is determined by a conrotatory or a disrotatory transition state formation as predicted by the Woodward–Hoffmann rules.

The torquoselectivity in an electrocyclic reaction refers to the direction that the substituents rotate. For example, the substituents in a reaction that is conrotatory can still rotate in two directions. It produces a mixture of two products that are the mirror image of each other (enantiomeric products). A reaction that is torquoselective restricts one of these directions of rotation (partially or completely) to produce a product in enantiomeric excess (where one stereoisomer is produced much more than the other).

Chemists are interested in electrocyclic reactions because the geometry of the molecules confirm a number of predictions made by theoretical chemists. They confirm the conservation of molecular orbital symmetry.

The Nazarov cyclization reaction is an electrocyclic reaction that closes a ring. It converts divinylketones to cyclopentenones. (It was discovered by Ivan Nikolaevich Nazarov (1906–1957).)

An example is the thermal ring-opening reaction of 3,4-dimethylcyclobutene. The cis isomer only yields cis,trans-2,4-hexadiene. But the trans isomer gives the trans,trans diene:

The frontier-orbital method explains how this reaction works. The sigma bond in the reactant will open in a way that the resulting p-orbitals will have the same symmetry as the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of the product (a butadiene). This can only happen with a conrotatory ring-opening that results in opposite signs for the two lobes at the broken ends of the ring. (A disrotatory ring-opening would form an anti-bond.) The following diagram shows this:

The stereospecificity of the result depends on whether the reaction proceeds through a conrotatory or disrotatory process.

Woodward-Hoffman rules
The Woodward–Hoffmann rules address the conservation of orbital symmetry in electrocylic reactions.

Correlation diagrams connect the molecular orbitals of the reactant to those of the product having the same symmetry. Correlation diagrams can be drawn for the two processes.

These correlation diagrams indicate that only a conrotatory ring opening of 3,4-dimethylcyclobutene is "symmetry allowed" whereas only a disrotatory ring opening of 5,6-dimethylcyclohexa-1,3-diene is "symmetry allowed". This is because only in these cases would maximum orbital overlap occur in the transition state. Also, the formed product would be in a ground state rather than an excited state.

Frontier molecular orbital theory
The Frontier Molecular Orbital Theory predicts that the sigma bond in the ring will open in a way that the resulting p-orbitals will have the same symmetry as the HOMO of the product.

The above diagram shows two examples. For the 5,6-dimethylcyclohexa-1,3-diene (top row of diagram), only a disrotatory mode would result in p-orbitals having the same symmetry as the HOMO of hexatriene. The two p-orbitals rotate in opposite directions. For the 3,4-dimethylcyclobutene (bottom row of diagram), only a conrotatory mode would result in p-orbitals having the same symmetry as the HOMO of butadiene. The p-oribtals rotate in the same direction.

Excited state electrocyclizations
Light can move an electron up to an excited state that occupies a higher orbital. The excited electron will occupy the LUMO, which has a higher energy level than the electron's old orbital. If light opens the ring of 3,4-dimethylcyclobutene, the resulting electrocyclization would be occur by a disrotatory mode instead of a conrotatory mode. The correlation diagram for the allowed excited state ring opening reaction shows why:

Only a disrotatory mode, in which symmetry about a reflection plane is maintained throughout the reaction, would result in maximum orbital overlap in the transition state. Also, once again, this would result in the formation of a product that is in an excited state of comparable stability to the excited state of the reactant compound.

Electrocyclic reactions in biological systems

Electrocyclic reactions occur frequently in nature. One of the most common such reactions in nature is the biosynthesis of vitamin D3.

The first step involves light opening the ring of 7-dehydrocholesterol to form pre vitamin D3. This is a photochemically induced conrotatory electrocyclic reaction.  The second step is a [1,7]-hydride shift to make vitamin D3.

Another example is in the proposed biosynthesis of aranotin, an oxepine found in nature, and its related compounds.

Phenylalanine is used to make diketopiperazine (not shown). Then enzymes epoxidate diketopiperazine to make the arene oxide. This undergoes a 6π disrotatory ring opening electrocyclization reaction to produce the uncyclized oxepine. After a second epoxidation of the ring, the nearby nucleophilic nitrogen attacks the electrophilic carbon, forming a five membered ring. The resulting ring system is a common ring system found in aranotin and its related compounds.

The benzonorcaradiene diterpenoid (A) was rearranged into the benzocycloheptatriene diterpenoid isosalvipuberlin (B) by boiling a methylene chloride solution. This transformation can be thought of as a disrotatory electrocyclic reaction, followed by two suprafacial 1,5-sigmatropic hydrogen shifts, as shown below:

Scope
An example of an electrocyclic reaction is the conrotatory thermal ring-opening of benzocyclobutane. The reaction product is a very unstable ortho-quinodimethane. This molecule can be trapped in an endo addition with a strong dienophile such as maleic anhydride to the Diels-Alder adduct. The chemical yield for the ring opening of the benzocyclobutane depicted in scheme 2 is found to depend on the nature of the substituent R. With a reaction solvent such as toluene and a reaction temperature of 110 °C, the yield increases going from methyl to isobutylmethyl to trimethylsilylmethyl. The increased reaction rate for the trimethylsilyl compound can be explained by silicon hyperconjugation as the βC-Si bond weakens the cyclobutane C-C bond by donating electrons.

An biomimetic electrocyclic cascade reaction was discovered in relation to the isolation and synthesis of certain endiandric acids:

References

Pericyclic reactions
Rearrangement reactions

Electrocyclic reaction


Thomas Richard Allinson (29 March 1858 – 29 November 1918) was an English physician, dietetic reformer, businessman, journalist and vegetarianism activist. He was a proponent of wholemeal (whole grain) bread consumption. His name is still used today for a bread popular in Europe, Allinson bread.

Biography

Allinson was born in the Hulme district of Manchester on 29 March 1858. He went to school in Lancaster and Manchester and at fifteen began work as a chemist's assistant.  With money he saved and financial help from his stepfather, he was able to attend the extramural medical school in Edinburgh, which was less expensive than the University medical school. He graduated as a Licenciate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (LRCP, LRCS) in 1879. After assistantships in Hull and the East End of London he established his own practice in Marylebone in 1885.

During the 1880s Allinson developed his theory of medicine, which he called Hygienic Medicine.  In place of orthodox medicine, he promoted health through diet, exercise, fresh air and bathing.  He advocated a vegetarian diet and the avoidance of alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea.  He especially promoted the  benefits of stone-ground wholemeal breads.  He opposed the use of drugs by doctors, many of which at that time were ineffective and toxic and was a lifelong opponent of compulsory vaccination against smallpox. This approach became known as Allinsonian Medicine. He became medical editor of the Weekly Times and Echo in 1885, for which he wrote over 1000 articles during his life, as well as answering readers' medical queries.

He wrote a number of books and pamphlets directed at a general rather than medical readership, including A System of Hygienic Medicine (1886), How to avoid Vaccination (1888), The Advantage of Wholemeal Bread, Medical Essays and A Book for Married Women (1894) and books on stomach diseases, consumption (tuberculosis), rheumatism, vegetarian cooking and healthy diet. He gave frequent public lectures throughout the country propounding his ideas.  In one of his books, The Advantages of Wholemeal Bread (1889), he proposed that wholemeal bread was healthier than white (or refined) bread.  He believed that smoking was a cause of cancer, which was a radical idea at the time. Allinson regularly sought publicity for his theories and practices in the press and directed his energies not just towards his colleagues but directly to the public. To demonstrate the suitability of a vegetarian diet for strenuous exercise, he undertook a walk from Edinburgh to London in 1891. He walked for 15 consecutive days, averaging  a day, arriving in London on Saturday, September 12.

In 1888, Allinson married Anna Pulvermacher, an artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy; they had one daughter and three sons, including Bertrand P. Allinson and Adrian Allinson.

His views often brought him into conflict with the  Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the General Medical Council, particularly his opposition to doctors' frequent use of toxic drugs, his opposition to vaccination and his self-promotion in the press. In 1892 he was struck off the Medical Register.  Despite this he continued to practise and indeed maintained he had the largest medical practice in England.  Also at this time he was expelled from the Vegetarian Society because of his views on birth control. Gandhi, who was studying law in Britain at the time and was also a member of the Vegetarian Society, spoke in favour of Allinson's right to support contraception, despite being opposed to it.

In 1892 he founded the Natural Food Company with the intention of producing and selling healthy foods; he bought a stone grinding flour mill in Bethnal Green, and a bakery was established shortly afterwards.

His Book for Married Women advocated equality of women and men, the right of a woman to choose the size of her family, and birth control.  For this he was prosecuted and convicted under the Obscene Publications Act in 1901.

In 1911, Allinson bought the failing magazine Vanity Fair from Frank Harris. He failed to revive its fortunes and, in 1914, Vanity Fair merged with Hearth and Home.

During World War I, the food value of wholemeal bread was recognised. Although it has been claimed that Allinson was offered the right to re-register during WW1, the General Medical Council has no record of this and by that time he had no registrable qualifications. His company flourished from the increased demand for whole-grain bread and meal.  After his death, the company grew: two more stone-grinding mills were purchased in Newport, Monmouthshire and in 1921 Castleford, Yorkshire. The mills stand to this day.

Allinson died from tuberculosis, at his home in Marylebone, on 29 November 1918.

Legacy
Allinson's original bread recipe (100% whole grain flour, no fat, less yeast, more water) is still used today, though some lovers of Allinson bread report that it's not as hearty nowadays as it used to be. The advertising slogan for the brand since the 1980s is "Bread wi' nowt [with nothing] taken out".

Selected publications

Medical Essays (5 volumes, 1892)
Dr. Allinson's Vegetarian Cookery (1910)

References

Further reading

P. S. Brown. (1991). Medically Qualified Naturopaths and the General Medical Council. Medical History 35: 50-77.

External links

1858 births
1918 deaths
19th-century English medical doctors
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
British anti-vaccination activists
British nutritionists
British vegetarianism activists
People associated with the Vegetarian Society
People in alternative medicine
People from Hulme
Tuberculosis deaths in England
Vanity Fair (British magazine) people
Vegetarian cookbook writers

Thomas Allinson


Sequah Medicine Company began in 1887 as the Sequah Medicine Co Ltd selling patent medicines such as prairie flower and Indian oil using traveling salesman, known as Sequahs.  The traveling salesmen were quack doctors. The original Sequah was William Henry Hartley, who founded the company selling supposed Native American remedies in Great Britain and Ireland. The successful pitch quickly drew imitators, to the annoyance of Hartley. One such example is Peter Alexander Gordon, who went under the pseudonym James Kaspar.  Gordon sold the Sequah Patent Medicine in Great Britain, Ireland, the West Indies and North America and South Africa.

Sequah products were sold using the device of a traveling medicine show.  These shows consisted of a warm-up act of music and other entertainments which attracted a crowd in order for the traveling salesman to begin his pitch.  The British version, introduced in 1890, was made up of a fairground steam organ.  The Government soon declared the practice of selling patent medicines in such a fashion illegal.  The company went into liquidation in 1895 and was liquidated on March 26, 1909.

References

Pharmaceutical companies established in 1887
Pharmaceutical companies disestablished in 1909
Patent medicines
1887 establishments in England
1909 disestablishments in England
British companies disestablished in 1909
British companies established in 1887

Sequah Medicine Company


Claude Traunecker (born 1943 in Mulhouse) is a French Egyptologist, professor at the University of Strasbourg and researcher at the CNRS. He has participated in numerous archaeological excavations and research on ancient Egypt.

From 1968 to 1984, Traunecker worked in Franco-Egyptian Center for the Study of Temples Karnak and Luxor. He published research in the journal Cahiers de Karnak. Claude Traunecker taught at the École du Louvre from 1985 to 1995. He was then a professor at the University of Louvain. In 1996, he was elected chair of Egyptology at the University of Strasbourg, a position he held until 2007.

During the excavation campaign of 2004–2005, he explored the many rooms of the Theban tomb, TT33. Traunecker has authored many books and papers. He is the author of The Gods of Egypt, and in 1984 he published Karnak: résurrection d'un site with Jean-Claude Golvin.

References

1943 births
Living people
French Egyptologists
Writers from Mulhouse
Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg

Claude Traunecker


Casey J. Printers (born May 16, 1981) is a former professional American football, Canadian football and indoor football quarterback. Printers spent most of his professional career with the BC Lions in the Canadian Football League (CFL), and also played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Kansas City Chiefs and Allen Wranglers.

Early years
Born in DeSoto, Texas, Printers played football from a young age, a highlight being a trip to the Pop Warner National Championship in San Francisco, California with his team, the Oak Cliff Jets, when he was twelve years old.

College career
Printers played collegiately at Texas Christian University from 1999 to 2001, leading the TCU Horned Frogs to back-to-back Western Athletic Conference championships in 1999 and 2000 and three straight bowl games, including back-to-back appearances in the Mobile Alabama Bowl in 1999 and 2000. Printers was named Most Valuable Player in the Frogs' 1999 bowl victory and was subsequently named Freshman of the Year for 1999 by the Dallas Morning News and third-team Freshman All-American by The Sporting News. In 2000, he received honorable mention as an All-WAC Conference Selection. The 1999 and 2000 Horned Frogs, coached by Dennis Franchione, also featured Heisman Trophy candidate and future NFL star LaDainian Tomlinson at running back. In 2001, Printers led the Horned Frogs to a 6-6 record and an appearance in the galleryfurniture.com Bowl, where Printers was 15-30 for 144 yards and 4 interceptions in the 28-9 loss. Printers' 4,621 passing yards and 37 touchdown passes each rank fourth in TCU history.  Branding himself the "Best Kept Secret in College Football", Printers transferred to Florida A&M for his senior year (2002), where he led the Rattlers to a 7-5 record, completing 123 of 218 passes for 1,517 yards with 12 touchdowns and 5 interceptions and rushing for 3 touchdowns.

Professional career

BC Lions
After going undrafted in the 2002 NFL Draft, Printers joined the BC Lions for the 2003 CFL season on a three-year contract as their third-string quarterback, and saw little playing time, attempting only two passes. During the 2004 season, he unseated Spergon Wynn as backup quarterback and replaced starter Dave Dickenson when Dickenson went down with an injury. After completing 325 of 494 pass attempts for 5,088 yards and 35 touchdowns with 10 interceptions and rushing for 469 yards and 9 touchdowns, he was named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2004 season, becoming known as a dynamic quarterback able to improvise and make big plays both passing and rushing. He played a key role in the Lions' eight-game winning streak, 13-5 record, and first-place finish in the West Division standings.  His 35 passing touchdowns and 10.3 yards-per-pass average led the league; he tied Edmonton's Jason Maas for a league-best 65.8 completion percentage, and his rushing stats were best among QBs.

In the 2004 West Division Final against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Printers was forced to leave the game with a shoulder injury in the fourth quarter, with the score tied 14-14. Dickenson, having recovered from knee surgery and shared quarterbacking duties with Printers late in the season, played the rest of the game and threw a touchdown pass in the Lions' 27-25 overtime victory. Dickenson would start and play the entire 2004 Grey Cup game against the Toronto Argonauts, which the Lions lost by a score of 27-19.

Printers had surgery on his right hallux in the 2004-2005 offseason, and turned down a three-year, $1 million contract extension from the Lions. With Printers recovering, Dickenson won the starting job and led the team to an 11-0 start. Printers took over as starter after Dickenson was injured in the 13th game. After the 11-0 start, the Lions lost six of their last seven regular season games, including the regular season finale against the Roughriders, in which Dickenson returned and replaced Printers in the second half. Dickenson started and played all but the last three minutes of the 2005 West Division Final against the Edmonton Eskimos, which the Lions lost 28-23.

Throughout the 2005 season Printers was embroiled in a quarterback controversy with Dickenson over who should start as pivot and was nagged by shoulder and toe injuries. Ultimately, Printers saw relatively little playing time, completing 131 of 216 pass attempts for 1671 yards, 9 touchdowns and 6 interceptions, with 336 yards rushing and 2 rushing TDs. In January 2006, he turned down a three-year, $1.2 million (CAD) offer from the Lions, opting to sign a three-year, $1.03 million (USD) deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.

In June 2009 Printers stated that he would be willing to return to the B.C. Lions.

Kansas City Chiefs
Printers was expected to compete with Chiefs 2006 draft pick Brodie Croyle for a backup quarterback position, but struggled in his preseason debut in the second quarter of an August 12, 2006 game against the Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium. In limited action in the Chiefs' four pre-season games, Printers completed 12 of 23 pass attempts for 109 yards with one interception and rushed 5 times for 20 yards. He was cut by the Kansas City Chiefs on September 2, 2006, prior to the start of the regular season. He was signed to the Chiefs' practice squad on September 4, 2006. On October 28, 2006, he was signed to the Chiefs' 53-man roster. After being demoted to the practice roster once again, he travelled to Vancouver and attended the November 12 BC Lions West Division Final playoff game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders at BC Place, but was barred from the sidelines by Lions head coach Wally Buono. The Lions won the game 45-18 with Dave Dickenson at quarterback. In late November 2006, the Toronto Argonauts expressed an interest in negotiating a contract with him, although he was still under contract to the Chiefs and the BC Lions still owned his CFL rights. On December 31, 2006, Printers signed a three-year deal with the Chiefs and was promoted to the active roster.

Printers was released by the Chiefs on September 1, 2007. His conversation with Chiefs Director of Player Personnel Ray Farmer was documented on episode 5 of HBO's Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Kansas City Chiefs series. Printers said that his release was "unbelievable," especially since he had done everything asked of him during training camp. Printers was replaced by Tyler Thigpen.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Printers signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on September 6, 2007, for a reported $500,000 a season, making him the highest paid player in the CFL. However, he ended up struggling greatly, throwing twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes. He was released by the team on February 19, 2009.

Return to BC
On September 21, 2009, Casey Printers agreed to terms with BC Lions on a practice roster contract. He was signed from the practice roster on October 8, and suited up as the third-string quarterback on October 9, in a game versus the Edmonton Eskimos.  He then became the starting quarterback on October 24, in a 33-30 overtime loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

On Thanksgiving Day October 11, 2010, Printers replaced Travis Lulay at quarterback. Opponent Winnipeg Blue Bombers started rookie Alex Brink but he was replaced by Steven Jyles after an awful start. With Jyles at quarterback, the Bombers overcame a 32-14 4th quarter deficit and sent the game into overtime with the score tied at 32.

The Winnipeg fans who were booing earlier at Brink were now yelling to disrupt the Lions' play calling.  With the Lions down 41-35 in the 2nd overtime period, Printers attempted a pass to O'Neil Wilson on 2nd and long. However, it was intercepted by Deon Beasley and returned for a touchdown. Shortly after throwing the game-ending interception, Printers was seen throwing his helmet to the ground in disgust and yelling at Wilson.

He was released from the team later that week.

Allen Wranglers
On February 3, 2012, Printers signed with the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League. Printers made his debut with the Wranglers on February 25, 2012, against the Wichita Wild as backup to Bryan Randall and had a rushing touchdown.

Statistics

Records
Printers held the CFL record for single-game completion percentage, set with the BC Lions in a 49-11 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Ivor Wynne Stadium on August 13, 2004. Printers completed 20 of 22 passes (90.9%) for 303 yards, including four touchdowns to slotback Geroy Simon, which has since been broken by Ricky Ray of the Edmonton Eskimos on October 31, 2008. Simon's four TD catches also tied a team record. As the Lions' starting quarterback for most of the 2004 season, Printers was also instrumental in Geroy Simon's league-best 14 touchdown receptions and league-best 1750 receiving yards, which broke the Lions' club record for receiving yards in a season. The previous record was 1731 yards, set by Darren Flutie in 1994.

Personal
His favorite player while growing up was Warren Moon. Outside of football, Printers is a motivational speaker.

References

External links

1981 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
African-American players of Canadian football
African-American players of American football
Allen Wranglers players
American motivational speakers
BC Lions players
Canadian football quarterbacks
Canadian Football League Most Outstanding Player Award winners
Florida A&M University alumni
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Hamilton Tiger-Cats players
Sportspeople from DeSoto, Texas
TCU Horned Frogs football players
Texas Christian University alumni
Players of American football from Texas
21st-century African-American sportspeople
20th-century African-American people

Casey Printers


Running Wild was a comedy sketch show originally broadcast by BBC television, the first TV series by English comedy double-act Morecambe and Wise. The first attempt by the pair at a television series, it aired for a single series of six episodes in 1954. Running Wild was Morecambe & Wise's first collaboration with Ernest Maxin, who subsequently worked with the duo on their second BBC television show.

History
From the late 1940s onwards, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise had been steadily building a reputation for their comedy on the national variety circuit. In September 1951, the duo made their first appearance on television with a guest spot on a BBC show called Parade of Youth, while they began making regular appearances on BBC Radio, first as semi-regular participants on Variety Fanfare, and then with their own show, You're Only Young Once, on the BBC Northern Home Service. The success that they began to achieve through their appearances on radio, combined with guest appearances on television, eventually led to the BBC offering them a television series of their own.

Ronnie Waldman, the head of BBC Light Entertainment, was in the process of attempting to devise an idea of television variety programming, rather than televising stage based variety. As part of this, he sought to sign up acts that could adapt to the demands of working on television, which required a huge amount of material. In 1953, Morecambe & Wise made an appearance on the television show Stars in Blackpool, which led to them meeting Waldman, who started forming plans for the duo to headline their own television series. However, although the duo had performed in Southern England on the variety circuit, their broadcasting career had largely taken place in Northern England, which led BBC producers to suggest that their act might not work with southern audiences. Bryan Sears, who was assigned as the new show's producer, eventually attached a group of six writers to the production, which received the title Running Wild. The series was given an initial run of six episodes, to be broadcast live fortnightly from the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd's Bush.

List of episodes

Reception
Following the broadcast of the first episode, the reviews were poor, with the most notable coming from Kenneth Bailey in the People on Sunday 25 April;

Such was the impact of that review that Eric Morecambe carried a copy of it with him for the rest of his life. The poor reception that the first show received, combined with only minor improvements in the quality for the second and third episodes, led to Morecambe and Wise suggesting to Ronnie Waldman that the remainder of the series be cancelled. In spite of their reservations, Waldman remained steadfast in his confidence in the duo and the production, and it eventually ran for the full six episodes. The Reaction Index, an indicator of the audience's approval of a television programme, given as a score out of 100, had slowly increased over the course of the series, while the reviews had improved. Nevertheless, the criticism that the duo had personally received meant that their morale and enthusiasm had evaporated by the end of the run.

Aftermath
Following the conclusion of Running Wild, Morecambe and Wise returned to the variety circuit. Unlike with the television show, where they had had little influence over the writing or direction of what appeared on the screen, when they appeared on stage, the duo had full control of their material and routines. Their initial appearances after their television experience were uniformly positive; their first post-television appearance, at the Ardwick Hippodrome in Manchester, which came after a period where they had re-written their act, saw them receive a standing ovation. Their initial success led to further variety bookings and a return to radio. Two years after the failure of Running Wild, Morecambe & Wise were invited to do a series of guest spots on The Winifred Atwell Show on ATV. These were successful enough to lead to guest appearances on other television shows, followed by a six-month tour of Australia in 1958. On their return, with a realisation that live variety was on the wane and television was becoming more popular, they decided to focus on TV work, with a view eventually to having their own series. They would eventually achieve this in 1961 when they were signed to ATV and began work on Two of a Kind.

Archive status
Running Wild was broadcast live, with no telerecording made. Although the ITV3 tribute series Morecambe & Wise Forever displayed an original script from Running Wild which stated that it was to be recorded, there is no evidence of whether this occurred and, if so, that any copy survived.

In 2011, the BBC broadcast Eric and Ernie, a dramatization of the early years of Morecambe and Wise's career written by Victoria Wood. This told the duo's story up to their return to variety following their first television series, and featured recreations of several scenes from Running Wild.

References

Further reading

External links

Morecambe and Wise
1954 British television series debuts
1954 British television series endings
BBC television sketch shows
1950s British television sketch shows
English-language television shows
Lost BBC episodes
Musical comedy television shows

Running Wild (1954 TV series)


Mikołaj Firlej (1588–1635) was a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth szlachcic and politician. Starost of Kazimierz Dolny from 1596, Lublin from 1614; castellan of Bielsk Podlaski from 1615, Wojnicz from 1618; voivode of Sandomierz from 1633. He was also a marshal of the Crown Tribunal and deputy to Sejm.

He was the son of the voivode of Kraków Mikołaj Firlej and Elżbieta Ligięzianka. In his youth, for twelve years he studied in Germany, England, Italy, Spainan and France. Supporter of Habsburgs and king Władysław IV Waza.

Married to Regina Oleśnicka, father of Zbigniew, Henryk, Stanisław, Andrzej and three daughters. Later married to Maria Mohyłowna.

Secular senators of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Members of the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
1588 births
1635 deaths
Mikolaj

Mikołaj Firlej (1588–1635)


Ibón is the Aragonese term for small mountain lakes of glacial origin in the Pyrenees, generally above 2,000 m. Many of them are the source of watercourses in Aragon.

There are in total 94 ibóns of different shapes and sizes; some of them are used to feed small hydroelectric plants.

The ibóns of Anayet, Sabocos, Ip or Estanés are the most well-known.

Etymology
ibón stems with almost certainty from the basque word ibai (river), which originally designated hot springs.

Geology
As the terrain where lies the spring forms a basin, often caused by the ancient presence of a glacier, these waters form a large or small lake depending on the morphological characteristics of the area.

Mythology
There are, according to local legend, enchanted Ibóns, where live fairies, like the Plan.

See also
Lakes in the Pyrenees

Landforms of Aragon

Ibón


The Big Hangover is a 1950 American comedy film released by MGM. The film starred Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor and was written and directed by Norman Krasna. Supporting players include Percy Waram, Fay Holden, Leon Ames, Edgar Buchanan, Selena Royle, Gene Lockhart, and Rosemary DeCamp.

The Big Hangover was one of Elizabeth Taylor's first films to feature her in an "adult character" role, the first being the 1949 British thriller Conspirator.

Despite being released with high hopes, The Big Hangover was a critical and box office disappointment. Home video releases are scarce in any format, as the movie remains largely unknown.

Plot
Law school student David Maldon is hired by a prominent law firm. At a birthday party for the senior partner, John Belney, his erratic behavior causes Belney's beautiful daughter, Mary, to accuse David of being drunk.

He is not. David suffers from a rare malady, "liquor recoil", causing him to become intoxicated at the mere taste of alcohol. He hallucinates during these episodes, and Mary, a psychoanalyst, is fascinated at the way David even imagines a talking dog.

City attorney Carl Bellcap is threatening a lawsuit against the firm over the eviction of a Chinese family from their apartment. David intervenes, saving the day, but firm partner Charles Parkford had been responsible for the eviction and is now livid. Parkford slips wine into David's soup, then enjoys watching the younger man make a public spectacle of himself.

At law school graduation, David surprises his colleagues by submitting his resignation, deciding to work instead for Bellcap and the city. Mary hates to see him leave the family firm, but respects David's values and has also fallen in love.

Cast
 Van Johnson as David Maldon
 Elizabeth Taylor as Mary Belney
 Percy Waram as John Belney
 Fay Holden as Martha Belney
 Leon Ames as Carl Bellcap
 Edgar Buchanan as Uncle Fred Mahoney
 Selena Royle as Kate Mahoney
 Gene Lockhart as Charles Parkford
 Rosemary DeCamp as Claire Bellcap
 Philip Ahn as Dr. Lee
 Gordon Richards as Williams
 Matt Moore as Mr. Rumlie
 Pierre Watkin as Samuel C. Lang
 Russell Hicks as Steve Hughes

Production
Krasna sold his story to MGM in March 1949 for what he said was more than $100,000.

In July June Allyson was announced for the lead with Montgomery Clift wanted to play her co star. By the end of the month however Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor were set as stars.

The film was also known as  Drink to Me Only.

Reception

Box Office
According to MGM records the film made $1,320,000 in the US and Canada and $306,000 overseas, leading to a profit of $25,000.

References

External links

 The Big Hangover at TCMDB

 Review of film at Variety

1950 films
1950 comedy films
American black-and-white films
American comedy films
Films scored by Adolph Deutsch
Films directed by Norman Krasna
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
1950s English-language films
1950s American films

The Big Hangover


Antonio Candido de Mello e Souza (July 24, 1918 – May 12, 2017) was a Brazilian writer, professor, sociologist and literary critic. As a critic of Brazilian literature, he was thought as having been one of the foremost scholars on the subject by Brazilian universities. He was the co-winner of the Prêmio Jabuti for essays in 1965 and was awarded the Prêmio Machado de Assis in 1993, the Camões Prize in 1998 and the Alfonso Reyes International Prize in 2005. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Candido was professor-emeritus at the University of São Paulo and São Paulo State University and doctor honoris causa by the University of Campinas.

Candido died on May 12, 2017 at the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil from complications of a hiatus hernia, aged 98.

References

Other websites
Antonio Candido: On Literature and Society by Antonio Candido with Howard S. Becker as translator. (Princeton University Press: May 5, 1995)
Antonio Candido's entry at Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural

1918 births
2017 deaths
Brazilian critics
Literary critics
Brazilian academics
Brazilian sociologists
Writers from Rio de Janeiro
Scientists from Rio de Janeiro

Antonio Candido