Château de la Guerche is a castle in La Guerche, in Indre-et-Loire, a département in France.

It was built during the reign of Charles VII of France, for Antoinette de Maignelais, young cousin of Charles's recently defunct mistress Agnès Sorrel, and her new husband André de Villequier.

The castle was besieged in 1592, during the French Wars of Religion. Restored in the seventeenth century and renovated subsequently, it is now open to visitors.

It has been listed since 1944 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

See also
List of castles in France

References

External links
 official website : Château de la Guerche

Castles in Centre-Val de Loire
Monuments historiques of Indre-et-Loire
Historic house museums in Centre-Val de Loire
Museums in Indre-et-Loire


Gérard Farison (15 March 1944 – 8 September 2021) was a French professional footballer who played as a defender.

References

External links

federation official site
Profile

1944 births
2021 deaths
Footballers from Saint-Étienne
French men's footballers
Men's association football defenders
France men's international footballers
Ligue 1 players
AS Saint-Étienne players
French football managers


Our Lady of Fátima Convent Secondary School is a convent school located in the city of Patiala in Punjab, India. The school is run by Catholic nuns who live on the school campus itself. The nuns, mostly belonging to the southern Indian state of Kerala, bought the small patch of land from the scion of the erstwhile Patiala State in 1960.

About the school

Our Lady of Fátima Convent Secondary School was established in the year 1960. It is run by Seraphina Educational Society, Dehradun. The main aim of the society is education of the youth, especially poor and abandoned children. Since 1901 the Society is actively engaged in the field of education in India. It is a co-educational institution affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The medium of instruction is English. It is run by the Seraphina Educational Society, Dehradun.

Their educational vision is:

 The education of the young with a preferential option for the poor, the marginalised or the underprivileged in the slum/interior rural areas.
 The care of the orphaned/destitute children.
 The service of the poor especially in the remote regions.

Crest and motto
The crest of the school consists of two crossed arms, the naked one of Jesus Christ and the robed one of Saint Francis of Assisi. It bears the inscription "Porto I Misteri" which means "I Carry The Mysteries", and IHS which is a Christogram. The motto "" means "My God and All".

Houses
The four houses are named after Christian saints. All the extra-curricular activities are conducted between these four houses.
 Saint Clare (Royal Blue )
 Saint Francis (Red )
 Saint Mary (Green )
 Saint Joseph (Yellow )

Boat tragedy
On 29 September 1982 there were a group of children from the school picnicking around the Nangal Dam area. The children accompanied by teachers went for a boat ride when some of the boats started to sink and 22 11-year-old children drowned in the lake. The 22 flower pots commemorate those who died and the names of children are listed just below the statue of Lady Fatima at the school entrance. Later their parents established the Children memorial school.

References

External links
 Our Lady of Fátima Convent Secondary School – Official website

Catholic schools in India
High schools and secondary schools in Patiala
Christian schools in Punjab, India
1960 establishments in East Punjab
Educational institutions established in 1960


"Dreamland" refers to the fourth and fifth episodes of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. Part one first aired on November 29, and part two aired on December 6, 1998, on Fox in the United States and Canada. The episode was written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Kim Manners ("Dreamland") and Michael Watkins ("Dreamland II"). Although dealing with a member of the Men in Black, the episode is largely unconnected to the mythology of The X-Files, and is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story. Part one of "Dreamland" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, being watched by 17.48 million people in its initial broadcast; Part two received a rating of 10 and was watched by 17.01 million people. The episode received mostly mixed reviews from critics, with many reviews critical of the episode's reliance on humor.

The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In the episode, Mulder and Scully visit Area 51. But when the agents witness the flight of a mysterious craft, Mulder and a member of the Men in Black switch bodies, unbeknownst to the others. In part two, Scully begins to suspect that her partner's strange behavior is more than it appears to be, while Mulder fights to return his life to normal before it is too late.

"Dreamland" was the only non-mythology story to be spread across two episodes. Originally, the writers for the episode contacted Garry Shandling to play the part of Fletcher but he was unavailable for filming. Michael McKean was then cast in his place. The episode is notable for a scene featuring Mulder-as-Fletcher encountering his reflection and proceeding to do the dance from the 1933 Marx Brothers comedy film Duck Soup. The scene required Duchovny and McKean to synchronize their movements perfectly. Dreamland is one of the names used for the Area 51 facility.

Plot

Part one
Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) visit the Area 51 installation in Nevada after receiving a tip from an inside source concerning alien spacecraft. As they drive on the highway, the agents are surrounded by Jeeps carrying soldiers led by a Man in Black named Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean). A rumbling noise is heard as a mysterious craft flies overhead and a bright light from the object passes over them. Mulder and Fletcher find that their minds have been swapped into each other's bodies, but nobody else present is aware of this. Fletcher and Scully depart, watched by the soldiers.

Mulder is driven back to Area 51 along with two other Men in Black, Howard Grodin and Jeff Smoodge. After an angry telephone call from Fletcher's wife, Joanne, Mulder—still inside Fletcher's body—goes to Fletcher's home. Instead of sleeping in the bedroom, he decides to sleep downstairs in an easy chair and watch pornography. When he is awoken by Joanne, he mumbles Scully's name. While changing his clothes, Mulder receives a call from Smoodge, who explains that the military has surveyed the wreckage of the craft from the night before, finding one of the human pilots fused into a rock but still alive. Another soldier, Captain Robert McDonough, had switched bodies with an elderly Hopi woman, Lana Chee, as evident from McDonough's aberrant behavior.

Mulder calls Scully and tries to explain that he's the real Mulder. Scully does not believe him and asks Fletcher—in Mulder's body—to pick up and listen to the conversation. Fletcher decides they should immediately report this incident, which further confuses Scully. She goes to Mulder's apartment (where Fletcher is having a tryst with Assistant Director Kersh's assistant) and tells him that they traced the call to a payphone near Area 51; she suspects it is Mulder's informant. Fletcher is indifferent to this news and Scully yells at him, sensing that his behavior is very strange and his lack of concern for the X-Files is completely out of character.

Deciding to investigate on her own, Scully drives through the desert towards Area 51. She stops at a burned out gas station and finds a penny and a dime fused together. Later, when Scully arrives at Fletcher's house, Mulder tries desperately to convince her that he is really Mulder. Scully remains skeptical and thinks that any information Mulder describes could be obtained in other ways. Mulder tells Scully that he will provide proof, but Fletcher, having eavesdropped on the conversation, calls his old office posing as Mulder to inform them of the source of the leak—Mulder posing as Fletcher. Military police arrive at the appointed hour, and Mulder is dragged away, desperately pleading with Scully. Mulder asks if he would turn in an informant to the authorities in this manner as he is carried away, and Scully begins to realize that he may be telling the truth.

Part two
As Mulder—in Fletcher's body—is dragged away by the soldiers, Scully begins to question whether his story about the body-swap was true. Fletcher—in Mulder's body—approaches Scully and apologizes for telling Kersh; she feigns acceptance of it. After being reprimanded, Fletcher arranges a dinner date with Scully at Mulder's apartment. Meanwhile, Mulder is confined in a cell next to the mind-switched Lana Chee. Military police take Mulder to a meeting with General Wegman, Grodin and Smoodge, who believe that Mulder-as-Fletcher was trying to defraud the FBI, not help them. Mulder bluffs his way through the meeting, claiming that the real proof is safe and that he did not tell them about the scheme because he did not know if he could trust his colleagues, thinking any one of them could be the source of the leak. Mulder returns to Fletcher's house and tells Joanne that he is Agent Fox Mulder, but Joanne thinks her husband must be undergoing a mid-life crisis.

At Mulder's apartment, Scully reveals to Fletcher-as-Mulder that she is on to the body swap, demanding to know how to restore Mulder to his own body. Mulder's informant calls again and Scully forces Fletcher to set up a meeting. Mulder, Joanne, Fletcher and Scully arrive at a bar in Rachel, Nevada, where the informant is revealed to be General Wegman. Wegman admits that he sabotaged the UFO, but maintains that he only tried to merely disable the stealth module so that Mulder could see it. Wegman gives Fletcher, who he thinks is Mulder, a flight data recorder in a paper bag. Meanwhile, Mulder leaves and talks to Scully in the car. Later, Mulder and Fletcher meet in the bar's bathroom and argue about the flight data recorder. As they argue, Wegman enters the bathroom and discovers the two. Mulder meets with Wegman to discuss the UFO. Wegman believes that now that Fletcher knows Wegman's identity, when restored to his own body, Fletcher will turn him in. Wegman explains that he hoped that Mulder could explain whether aliens actually exist; apparently the craft are simply given to the military without knowing where they are from or how they work.

After the fiasco at the bar, Mulder and Scully meet. She sadly tells Mulder that she does not think he and Fletcher can be returned to their own bodies. However, soon after that, the warp caused by the alien craft begins to snap back and repair the natural order of the universe. Grodin, realizing that everything will be fixed naturally, gathers up Lana Chee and Captain McDonough. Scully and Fletcher arrive at Fletcher's home, and see Mulder standing by the moving truck. Joanne berates Mulder about Scully but he insists that he and Fletcher have swapped bodies. Fletcher goes to help Joanne move a chair and confesses that Mulder is telling the truth, telling her enough details about their past to convince her he is Fletcher. Smoodge and a group of soldiers appear at the house and detain Mulder, Fletcher, Scully and the flight data recorder in their car.

Grodin explains to the group that he is restoring everything and that he reversed the body-swap between Chee and McDonough. The warp passes over them and the past few days are rewritten. Mulder and Fletcher are restored to their own bodies and returned to the moment when Fletcher's troops pulled them over on the highway. This time, no ship passes overhead and the agents leave uneventfully. Afterwards, Scully calls from FBI headquarters to tell Mulder that they have escaped reprimand from Kersh for going to Nevada. Scully opens her desk drawer to place a file inside and finds the penny and dime that were fused together from the event at the gas station, indicating that while some things have reversed themselves, not everything has. Mulder enters his apartment and finds that Fletcher has completely reorganized and cleaned his apartment. The agents are left to puzzle over their recollection of events.

Production

Casting

Garry Shandling was initially sought out to play the part of Fletcher. However, he was unavailable because he was filming the movie Town and Country, but he would later appear in the seventh season episode "Hollywood A.D.", playing a fictional version of himself. The production staff began looking for a replacement, going through, as the show's casting director Rick Millikan put it, "lists and lists" of potential actors. Vince Gilligan noted, however, that McKean was "at the top of our list from the beginning". McKean was very happy to play the part, although he did specifically ask the writers not to kill off his character.

Julia Vera was cast in the role of Lana Chee, the Hopi woman whose mind is switched with that of a young air force pilot. In order to age her, Vera wore special makeup and facial appliances; special contact lenses were also crafted, giving her eyes a clouded look. The scene in which she flicks a cigarette butt into Mulder's lap took five takes to get because the lenses obstructed her vision.

Filming

Production for "Dreamland" necessitated the series to temporarily relocate to "Club Ed", a movie ranch near Lancaster, California. Because Club Ed was almost 100 miles away from the Fox Studios, most of the show's crew had to camp out in motels located in the desert. Because this filming location was outside the Los Angeles studio zone, Fox was required to pay all actors and production staff members a per diem covering the cost of meals and motel reservations, leading to budget constraints. Half-way through the episode's production, Duchovny was reported as saying, "When is this show moving back to Los Angeles?" Within days, the crew had made T-shirts that humorously featured the question.

Many of the locations in the episode were created from scratch, either through conventional means or through computer technology. For instance, the gas station that explodes was erected by the props department outside Lancaster and fitted with gas pumps from a station that had recently closed. The store was then loaded with merchandise and then rigged for detonation. After the set was destroyed and filming ceased, the remnants were quickly cleared away. According to set decorator Duke Tomasick: "It was as if the whole thing never even existed". Area 51, the government airplanes, and the alien craft were all created with CGI technology by visual effects producer Bill Millar. Originally, the time warp effect resembled a "blue sheet", according to producer John Shiban, sans the blurring effect visible in the finished episode. Eventually, the production crew felt that this effect was not effective, and so the footage was blurred in order to create a more convincing "molecular transferal" effect.

Other locations were either real, or were filmed with the use of stand-ins. The gate for the Area 51 set, for instance, was filmed at a desolate stretch of fence near the Los Angeles/San Bernardino County division. The scene was later supplemented with a matte painting to complete the effect. While there really is a Little A'Le'Inn cafe in Rachel, Nevada, along Route 375, neither the outside or the inside of this location was featured in the episode.

Choreography

The scene where Mulder-as-Fletcher encounters his reflection and proceeds to dance is an homage to the Marx Brothers comedy film Duck Soup (1933). Initially, the producers thought about creating the scene with expensive digital effects. Duchovny and McKean, however, volunteered to do it the "old fashioned way" by choreographing their moves so that they would be in-sync. Duchovny and McKean each watched Duck Soup and then practiced their routine for a week and a half. During filming, a metronome was used so that the two actors could keep time with each other; this ticking was then removed during post-production. The effect was furthered by a unique set that was actually two bedrooms, both mirror images of each other. The only part of this dance that required any CGI was when Mulder fogs up the mirror with his breath.

Reception

Ratings
"Dreamland" first aired in the United States on November 29, and "Dreamland II" aired on December 6, 1998. The first part of the episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.1, with a 15 share, meaning that roughly 10.1 percent of all television-equipped households, and 15 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 17.48 million people. The second part received a 10 rating, with a 15 share. It was subsequently viewed by 17.01 million people. The first part aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on March 28, 1999, and the second part aired on April 4; part one received 0.73 million viewers and was the fourth most watched episode that week, and part two later received 0.88 million viewers and was the second most watched episode that week, after an episode of Friends. Fox promoted the first part of the episode with the tagline "what if you could discover the truth by living inside another man's body?" They promoted the second part of the episode with the line "Can he get back?"

Reviews

The episode received mostly mixed reviews from critics, with many commenting on the episode's reliance on humor. In a review of part one, a critic from Knight Ridder wrote, "As disorienting as this body transfer had to be for Mulder, the experience provided amusing television. And that seems to be a problem for some X-Files fans. Knowing that the human population's survival is imperiled by the colonization plans of a fierce extraterrestrial race, a large number of X-Philes want the show to focus on our heroes' efforts to come to the rescue". The newspaper's review of Part 2 was much more negative, with the article saying "by the end of the latest X-Files episode, we were wishing we could push a reset button on Dreamland II, just to forget some of the silly stuff that transpired in this show". Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode two stars out of five and noted that the episode lacked "structure and point". Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave both episodes mixed reviews, awarding the first part two-and-a-half stars out of four, and the second part two stars. Vitaris was unhappy with the amount of comedy used in the episode, noting that once Mulder visited Fletcher's house, "the comedy turns sour": she argued that the members of Fletcher's family were examples of caricatures. Despite this, she praised the scene featuring the murder of the gas station attendant, claiming that "for a moment, this episode really clicks". Vitaris, in her review for part two, called the episode "purely illogical", although she noted it did feature "minor fun", pointing out the scene wherein Scully catches Fletcher by handcuffing him.

Not all reviews were completely negative. Zack Handlen from The A.V. Club wrote positively of the first part of the episode's humor and awarded it a B+. Handlen noted that "the context of seeing actors in the wrong places" is "what’s funny about the episode". However, he did slightly criticize the episode's padding—specifically Nora Dunn's role as Fletcher's wife and the Duck Soup mirror gag—but argued that "for every bit that doesn’t play in the episode, there are three that do." Emily VanDerWerff, also from The A.V. Club, gave the second half of the episode a B− and wrote, "I have basically nothing to add to what Zack said about the first 'Dreamland' last week. 'Dreamland II' is a fairly unnecessary hour of television, and there’s no reason this logy two-parter couldn't have become a much tighter one-hour episode." Tom Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files wrote that "my final judgement on 'Dreamland' [part one] is that I enjoyed the entertainment value it presented. It was fun and I'm not one to begrudge a little romp now and then." Kessenich, however, did note that the second part "felt strung out". Den of Geek writer Juliette Harrisson, however, saw the episode in a more positive light and said, "Season six included some more excellent episodes only peripherally related to the main story arc, [such as] Dreamland parts one and two". Kerry Fall from DVD Journal wrote positively of the episodes and described them, together as "one of the best episodes in years". Gareth Wigmore of TV Zone gave the first part of the episode an 8 out of 10 rating and highlighted the "strong story-telling, clever dialogue, and good acting". Earl Cressey from DVD Talk concluded that both "Dreamland" parts one and two were among the "highlights of season six". Topless Robot named "Dreamland" the fourth funniest episode of the series.

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

1998 American television episodes
Fiction about body swapping
Television episodes set in Nevada
Television episodes directed by Kim Manners
Television episodes written by Vince Gilligan
Television episodes written by Frank Spotnitz
The X-Files (season 6) episodes


Tipton is a small unincorporated community in Monroe County, Illinois, United States. It grew up around the Cambria Station on the St. Louis and Cairo Railroad. The community there, settled by persons of Irish descent was called Tipperary, which degenerated over time through Tiptown, to the current Tipton.

References

Unincorporated communities in Monroe County, Illinois
Unincorporated communities in Illinois
Metro East
Irish-American history
Irish-American culture in Illinois


Rosa 'Mrs Fred Danks' is a hybrid tea rose cultivar which was bred by Alister Clark (1864–1949), and introduced after his death in Australia in 1952. The plant was named after a friend of Clark's.

Description
'Mrs. Fred Danks' is a tall upright shrub, 5 to 7 ft (150–200 cm) in height with a 3 to 5 ft (91–151 cm) spread. Blooms are large, 4–5 in (10–12.7 cm) in diameter, with a large semi-double (15–25 petals) bloom form. According to Charles and Brigid Quest-Ritson, in The Encyclopedia of Roses, "The tall, elegant buds are pale crimson, but the flowers open lilac pink with paler pink petal backs, and a creamy white center. They fade to pale pink and near white in hot weather."
The rose has a strong fragrance and large, dark green foliage. 'Mrs. Fred Danks' is an excellent garden rose. It blooms in flushes from spring through fall.

Notes

References

Mrs Fred Danks


Jeffrey Prothero, (March 15, 1956 – November 16, 2016) also known as Cynbe ru Taren, was an American computer programmer.  He was the author of Citadel, arguably the first virtual world system and one of the longest-running open source projects; the Digital Anatomist software, better known as the Visible Human Project; the original Pascal strek.pas Star Trek game program; the first Loglan parsers; and Mythryl, a production-grade port of SML/NJ.

Prothero used the screenname "Cynbe ru Taren" online. Cynbe ru Taren is the name of a fictional alien in Poul Anderson's 1964 science fiction novel The Star Fox. In the novel Cynbe ru Taren is an "Aleriona Intellect Master of the Garden of War, fleet admiral, and military strategist of the Grand Commission of Negotiators."

He died on November 16, 2016 due to colorectal cancer.

Early life and education
Prothero was born on March 15, 1956, in London, Ontario, to academic parents, John (Jack) and Joyce Prothero. He attended kindergarten in Ontario; first form in London, England; second form in Cambridge, England; third grade in Boston, Massachusetts; and fourth through twelfth in Seattle, Washington.

Prothero lived in Seattle, programming and designing virtual worlds, until 1997, when he moved to Austin, Texas, to live with his wife Allucquere Rosanne “Sandy” Stone, who is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.  Beginning in 1998, Prothero and Stone divided their time between Santa Cruz and Tahoe City, California, while maintaining a residence in Austin during school sessions.

The Digital Anatomist/Visible Human

Prothero enrolled at the University of Washington in 1974, spending most of his time at the Campus Computer Center.  He learned his craft at the Visual Techniques Laboratory, using a PDP10 and a Mohawk Data 600LPM printer.  Before long he was working as a full-time programmer for the department of Biological Structure, headed by John W. Sundsten and John Prothero.  He wrote the Skandha visualization system, which assembled microscopic sections of biological material into three-dimensional images which could be manipulated minutely to reveal details of the interior of such objects as the human body.

The Biological Structure department named this effort the Digital Anatomist project.  Its image database was supplied with raw digital material by Wolfgang Rauschning, a Swedish researcher in microtomy and microscopy who specialized in producing ultrathin tissue cross-sections. Rauschning's method was subtractive, ablating a layer of carefully frozen tissue only a few thousand molecules thick, coating the exposed surface with a glycerol mixture which Rauschning adapted to the specific tissue, photographing the surface at high resolution, and repeating until the tissue was completely sectioned.  Rauschning sent each image via Internet to the Digital Anatomist database at the University of Washington in Seattle.

His method produced extremely high resolution digital images in vivid color with almost none of the distortion which would normally be caused by the displacement forces generated by the action of a conventional microtome at extreme thinness settings. Sundsten, Jeffrey Prothero and John Prothero asked Rauschning to include fiduciaries in his sections, which enabled Prothero's Skandha 3D visualization software to assemble the huge digital database into three-dimensional flythrough-capable anatomical images with extremely fine grain. The group made Prothero's tapes of the 3D reconstructions freely available on their website.

Hearing of this work, the National Library of Medicine issued a Call for Proposals for a national 3D anatomical reconstruction database which would later become the Visible Human project.  To the astonishment of the Digital Anatomist group, they found that the University of Colorado had made a strong bid for the contract using Prothero’s data tapes as examples of its own work.

Technically there was nothing illegal about doing so, since the tapes were freely available, but Colorado's bid did not mention their provenance. Colorado won the contract, and continued to display Prothero’s work without attribution for the first three years of the contract, although its later work was not based on the methodology developed by the Digital Anatomist project (Colorado's specimen sectioning system involved something rather like a bandsaw), and produced considerably coarser-grained reconstructions.

Shortly afterward, the chief scientists of the UW Digital Anatomist project resigned in frustration.

Citadel BBS

In 1980, Prothero completed building his second computer, a Heath H89 with a homebrew power supply and a Silent 700 acoustic coupler.  He began writing code on December 14 and released the first version of Citadel on December 24.  The first release used a phone number that connected to the hardware in Prothero's study.  At first he did not call the program Citadel: instead he named it Ode, after its phone number, the acronym of which was ODE-DATA, later changed to ODD-DATA at the suggestion of friends.

The version of Citadel released December 24, 1980 was written in C and was fast, responsive, self-maintaining, and ran on a 90KB floppy disc.  The world consisted of a collection of rooms connected by “clues”.  Since some of the rooms were invisible, each clue included the name of the clued room as part of the clue. (For details of the Citadel room architecture see the Citadel software page; for details of the Citadel program architecture see below.)

Even at its most early stage, the new social forms enabled by the Citadel system allowed users to display aberrant and antisocial behavior which is now well-known among virtual world researchers, including griefing, unresolvable arguments, and misreadings of innocuous remarks resulting in flame wars.  When hardware problems finally brought the system down, Prothero felt that he had had enough of peacekeeping and wanted to concentrate on programming.  Consequently, he passed the software system on to David Mitchell, a friend who lived on Bainbridge Island, Washington, not far from Prothero’s home. The system Mitchell acquired went on to become the canonical Citadel.

In April 1982 Prothero released Citadel V.2.11 to the C Users Group mailing list.  As a social experiment and to distribute power more broadly, V.2.11 provided for aides, a class of people who were neither sysadmins nor users, but who had partial sysadmin powers.  To afford a measure of accountability, their actions produced an unerasable paper trail.  V.2.11 also implemented a secure database by encrypting it on disc using a simple XOR hash. Prothero continued to make further innovations in the Citadel software before moving on to other projects.

Prothero posted the Citadel source code to the RCP/M archive network in 1990.  The code is cited as one of the longest running open source projects.

References

External links
 Mythryl project
 Jeffrey Prothero's Website

1956 births
2016 deaths
Artificial intelligence researchers
American computer scientists
Programming language researchers
Scientists from Ontario
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Deaths from colorectal cancer
Deaths from cancer in the United States
Loglan


Ciputra or Tjiputra (born 24 August 1931 – 27 November 2019) was an Indonesian businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He founded Ciputra Group, one of Indonesia's largest real estate companies, with three subsidiaries, including Ciputra Development, listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange. Known as one of Indonesia's most generous philanthropists, he established ten schools, the Ciputra University of Entrepreneurship in Surabaya, and the Ciputra Artpreneur Museum in Jakarta.

Early life and education
Tjie Tjin Hoan was born on 24 August 1931 in the town of Parigi in Central Sulawesi, Dutch East Indies. He was the third child of Chinese Indonesian merchants Tjie Sim Poe and Lie Eng Nio whose ancestral home was in Zhangzhou, Fujian. After Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies during World War II, Tjie's father was falsely accused of being a Dutch spy and arrested by the Japanese in 1943. Tjie never learned for sure what happened to his father, who was never heard from again and presumed to have died in prison.

Fatherless at age 12, Tjie grew up in poverty, but was able to resume his education after the end of World War II. After finishing high school in Manado, he entered the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology in Java to study architecture. He graduated in 1960.

When he was 25, Tjie Tjin Hoan adopted the mononym Ciputra (also spelled Tjiputra). "Ci" is from his Chinese surname Tjie, while "putra" means "son" in Indonesian.

Career
While still studying architecture in university, Ciputra and two friends, Budi Brasali and Ismail Sofyan, started a consulting firm.  After graduation, he decided to become a property developer instead of a consultant. Having earned the trust of Soemarno Sosroatmodjo, the Governor of Jakarta, he became CEO of Pembangunan Jaya (Jaya Group), a developer partly owned by the Jakarta provincial government. He worked for the company for 35 years and became a minority shareholder for his services. His major projects at Jaya included Ancol Dreamland and the Senen Market.

Together with his university friends Brasali and Sofyan, he also founded the Metropolitan Group. Serving as President Commissioner, he provided guidance to the company, which counts the Salim Group as an investor. Metropolitan developed Pondok Indah in Jakarta and invested abroad.

After his children graduated from universities overseas, Ciputra founded his family holding company, the Ciputra Group, for his four children. In addition to his children, his wife, brother, and children-in-law were all involved in its management. He also hired professional executives to manage the company, which developed more than 30 major projects in Indonesia and abroad, including Citra Raya in Surabaya.

The Ciputra Group was severely impacted by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, during which the value of the Indonesian rupiah plunged and the company's US dollar-denominated debts became far more burdensome. In addition, anti-Chinese riots broke out in Indonesia, forcing Ciputra to abandon several projects as sales plummeted. It took the group years to restructure its debts, and it did not regain profitability until 2005.

After recovering from the crisis, Ciputra diversified his business from Indonesia and invested in major projects in China, Cambodia, and Vietnam, where the group developed a high-profile international satellite city in Hanoi in partnership with the local government.

The Ciputra Group has three subsidiaries listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange: Ciputra Development, Ciputra Surya, and Ciputra Property. Ciputra Development is one of Indonesia's largest listed property companies.

Philanthropy
Ciputra was known as one of Indonesia's most generous philanthropists. Attributing his self-made success to his education, he established ten schools as well as the Ciputra University of Entrepreneurship in Surabaya. An avid art collector, in 2014 he opened the Ciputra Artpreneur Museum in Jakarta, which holds a large collection of works by his favourite artist, Hendra Gunawan.

Personal life
When he was 24, Ciputra married Dian Sumeler, whom he had met in Sulawesi. The couple had four children: Rina, Junita, Cakra, and Candra. All four children serve on the boards of the Ciputra Group and Ciputra Development, and his son Candra Ciputra also serves as President of Ciputra Development.

Death
On 27 November 2019, Ciputra died at age 88 at Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore, where he had been undergoing treatment for an illness.  His wife, Dian Sumerler Ciputra, died on 22 December 2021.

Ciputra was buried in a private cemetery at Jonggol, West Java on 5 December 2019.

References

1931 births
2019 deaths
20th-century Indonesian businesspeople
21st-century Indonesian businesspeople
Bandung Institute of Technology alumni
Businesspeople in real estate
Indonesian billionaires
Indonesian company founders
Indonesian investors
Indonesian people of Chinese descent
Indonesian philanthropists
People from Central Sulawesi
20th-century philanthropists


Li Jiao (born 15 January 1973) is a Chinese-born professional table tennis player who now represents the Netherlands. She resides in Heerhugowaard.

Notable matches
In the World Team Championship 2014 Quarter Final draw of Netherlands versus the host team Japan, Li, ranked 13th at the time, famously came from behind to defeat both the then World No. 10 Kasumi Ishikawa and World No. 25 Sayaka Hirano, in five sets. The match eventually finished 3–2 to Japan, with the final match of Britt Eerland (Netherlands) versus Kasumi Ishikawa (Japan) also ending in five sets.

Career highlights

Olympic Games
2008, Beijing, women's singles, last 16
2008, Beijing, team competition
2012, London, women's singles, last 8
2012, London, team competition, last 8
World Championships
2005, Shanghai, women's singles, quarter final
2005, Shanghai, mixed doubles, last 32
2006, Bremen, team competition, 14th
2007, Zagreb, women's singles, last 16
2007, Zagreb, mixed doubles, last 32
2008, Guangzhou, team competition, 7th
Pro Tour Grand Finals
2006, Hong Kong, women's singles, last 16
Pro Tour Meetings
2004, Warszawa, women's singles, quarter final
2004, Warszawa, women's doubles, winner
2004, Aarhus, women's singles, semi final
2005, Santiago, women's singles, quarter final
2005, Fort Lauderdale, women's singles, quarter final
2006, St. Petersburg, women's singles, semi final
2006, Bayreuth, women's singles, quarter final
2006, Warszawa, women's singles, semi final
2008, Velenje, women's singles, winner
2008, Velenje, women's doubles, runner-up
2008, Santiago, women's doubles, semi final
European Games
2015, Baku, women's singles, winner
2015, Baku, team competition, runner-up
European Championships
2005, Aarhus, women's singles, semi final
2005, Aarhus, mixed doubles, quarter final
2007, Belgrade, women's singles, winner
2008, St. Petersburg, team competition, winner
European Top-12 Championships
2005, Rennes, 3rd
2006, Copenhagen, 3rd
2007, Arezzo, 1st
2008, Frankfurt, 1st
2010, Düsseldorf, 1st
2011, Liège, 1st

References

 2008 Olympic profile
 ITTF Database

1973 births
Living people
Dutch female table tennis players
Chinese emigrants to the Netherlands
Table tennis players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Olympic table tennis players for the Netherlands
Table tennis players from Qingdao
Table tennis players at the 2015 European Games
European Games gold medalists for the Netherlands
European Games silver medalists for the Netherlands
Chinese female table tennis players
Naturalised table tennis players
European Games medalists in table tennis


Ven. Thich Nhat Tu or Thích Nhật Từ (釋日慈) in Vietnamese (Saigon, 1969) is a Vietnamese Buddhist reformer, an author, a poet, a psychological consultant, and an active social activist in Vietnam. He is committed to propagate Buddha's teachings through education, cultural activities and charitable programs in order to benefit the individuals and the society at large.

Biography
Ven. Thich Nhat Tu was born in 1969. After completing secondary high school, he became a novice at 13 years old, under the spiritual guidance of the late Most Ven. Thich Thien Hue at Giac Ngo Temple and received full ordination in 1988. He has been the Abbot of Giac Ngo Temple since 1992, and is the founder of Buddhism Today Foundation in 2000. He is also the Abbot of Huong Son temple (Ha Tinh), Quan Am Dong Hai temple (Soc Trang), and Giac Ngo temple (Ba Ria - Vung Tau).

In 1992 he went to India for higher education and got his MA degree in philosophy in 1997 from Delhi University and D.Phil. degree from Allahabad University in 2001, respectively.

Ven. Thich Nhat Tu has authored more than seventy books in Vietnamese and English on Buddhist philosophy and applied Buddhism. He is editor-in-chief and publisher of Buddhism Today Books Series (more than 200 volumes on different subjects have been published in Vietnamese to meet the needs of researchers and practitioners). He is also author and editor of Buddhism Today Dharma Talks Series (more than 2000 VCDs and audio CDs on Buddhamdharma as taught by Ven. Dr. Thich Nhat Tu have been produced by the Buddhism Today Association for the general public). He is editor and publisher of Buddhism Today Dharma Music Series (more than 100 CD albums have been published).

He is also editor and publisher of the Vietnamese Tripitaka in MP3 format (The recording of the Vietnamese Sutta Pitaka translated from the Pali by Thich Minh Chau and that of the Mahayana tradition translated from the Chinese by various Mahayana scholars, the Āgamas, and Vinaya Pitaka. The Abhidharma is being carried out. The first mp3 edition of Sutta Pitaka came into existence in May 2006 for celebrations of Buddha Jayanti and has been placed on one of its websites, for downloading to both Macintosh and Windows computers. It is available for free distribution and non-commercial purposes.

Since 2002, he has extensively given public Dharma talks to Vietnamese communities, domestically as well as internationally, such as America, Australia and Europe. He is organizer and moderator of A Fortnightly Retreat for about 1500 practitioners at Pho Quang Temple, HCMC.

He is also actively engaged in the inter-religious dialogue and promotion of peace and harmony. He is committed to propagate Buddhist teachings through education, cultural activities and charitable programs in order to benefit the society at large.

Ven. Dr. Thich Nhat Tu currently serves as Standing Vice Rector of the Vietnam Buddhist University in Ho Chi Minh city, Standing Vice Chair of the National Department of International Buddhist Affairs (National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha), Vice Rector of Vietnam Buddhist Research Institute, and General Editor of Vietnamese Buddhist Tripitaka and Editor-in-chief of Buddhism Today magazine.

Education and conference
In spite of being born in the period when the country was still in difficulties with after war consequences, all Buddhist schools were forced to close, he was fortunate enough to be trained under respected Buddhist leaders in Vietnam in the 20th century, namely Thich Minh Chau, Thich Thien Sieu, Thich Duc Nghiep, etc... Thanks to their teachings and training, when still a Samanera, he was already rich in knowledge of Theravada and Mahayana sutras. He got a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1994, University of Pedagogy; Master of Philosophy in 1997, Delhi University; Doctor of Philosophy in 2001, Allahabad University.

Thich Nhat Tu has attended and contributed papers at international Buddhist conferences such as the International Conclave on Buddhism and Spiritual Tourism (New Delhi), Fo Guang Shan International Monastic Seminar (Kaohsiung), the Fourth World Buddhist Summit (Bangkok), Dharma Drum Mountain World Center for Buddhist Education Conference (Taipei), the First World Buddhist Forum (Hangzhou), the 23rd General Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (Kaohsiung), the First International Buddhist Conference (Kandy), International Buddhist Conference during United Nations day of Vesak (Thailand, 2007–2013), the Asian Zen Conference (international seminar on Meditation and Zen, Hong Kong), International Conference on Dharma – Dhamma (Sanchi/ Bhopal, India), National Conference on Buddhist Education (Hanoi), the International Conference on Buddhism in the New Era (HCM), International Conference on Multi-ethnic and Multi-language Asia, and others (HCM), etc.

He was international conference coordinator of United Nations Day of Vesak conference 2008 and 2014. He was convenor of several national conference on philosophy and Buddhism co-organised by Vietnam Buddhist University, Vietnam Buddhist Research Institute and HCM University of Humanities and Social Sciences.

He has been appointed as the International Organising Committee member of the UN Day of Vesak Celebration 2006–2012 and vice chair, international secretariat of the UN Day of Vesak Celebration 2007, Bangkok, general secretary of UNDV in 2008 and again deputy general secretary of UNDV 2014 and 2019.

Honorary doctorates
In appreciation of his excellent contribution to Buddhist education, his works on Buddhist academic research and leadership in international Buddhist community, several universities have conferred upon him Honorary Doctorates as follows:
 2010: Honorary Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies, conferred by the Mahamakut Buddhist University, Bangkok, Thailand on October 30, 2010;
 2016: Honorary Degree of Doctor in Philosophy, conferred by the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, Bangkok, Thailand, on May 15, 2016.
 2016: Honorary Degree of Doctor Letters, conferred by Apollos University, USA, on Jun 20, 2016.
 2019: Honorary Doctor of Letters conferred by Chancellor of Swami Vivekanand Subhrati University, Meerut, India, on April 27, 2019.
 2019: Doctor of Philosophy in Humanity Honoris Causa conferred by Rector of Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on March 31, 2019.
 2021: Honorary Doctoral of Philosophy in Morality Education conferred by President of International University of Morality, USA on Oct 14, 2021.
 2022: Honorary Doctor Degree of Literature (Sahithya Chakrawarthi) conferred by Chancellor of Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka, on April 6, 2022; Ref. BPU/ASS-04/Con.12/2021.

International Awards and Recognitions
 2013:  African Award for Leadership Excellence conferred by Chairman of the board of Buddhist Federation of African, on October 13, 2013.
 2015:  Saddhammajotikadhaja Title conferred by Government of Myanmar, Yangon, Myanmar, on March 4, 2015.
 2015:  The World Buddhist Outstanding Leader Award conferred by Acting Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, President of the Supreme Sangha Council, Bangkok, Thailand, on March 5, 2015.
 2017:  Global Buddhist Reformer Award conferred by President of World Alliance of Buddhist Leaders, Malaysia, July 22, 2017.
 2017:  Global Buddhist Ambassador Award conferred by H.E. Loknayak Ashva Ghosh Mahanayaka, Chairman of Manak International Institute of Buddhist Studies, Bangkok, February 12, 2017.
 2018:  Global Mentor Award conferred by Chancellor of Swami Vivekanand Subhrati University, Meerut, India, July 30, 2018.
 2019:  International Research and Education Award conferred by President of Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion of, March 31, 2019.
 2019:  International education Award conferred by President of Nepal Traditional Buddhist Association, Lumbini, February 28, 2019.
 2019:  Saddharma Keerthi Sri Darshana Visharada Award conferred by Sangharaja of Parama Dhamma Chetiya Pirivena Ratmalana, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 16, 2019
 2019:  Suvanna Pathom Chedi Award given by National Office of Buddhism, Thailand conferred by Somdej Phra Ariyavongsagatanana, Sangharaja, Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, August 4, 2019
 2019:  Outstanding Educator Award conferred by Founder of International Buddhist College, Thailand, on September 7, 2019.
 2019:  Atisha Dipankar Peace Gold Award conferred by HH. Sanghanayaka Suddhananda, Sangharaja of Bangladesh Bouddha Kristi Prachar Sangha, October 21, 2019
 2019:  The Award for Patronaging and Supporting Buddhism conferred by Somdej Phra Ariyavongsagatanana, Sangharaja, Supreme Patriarch of Thailand, July 16, 2019.
 2019:  Global Mahasaddhamjotika Award conferred by President of Younker Historical Research Foundation, March 7, 2019.
 2021:  Vaishakh Samman Prashastri Patra Award (Vesak Citation of Honour) conferred by Ministry of Culture Government of India, Bodhgaya, May 26, 2021.
 2021:  The Symbol of Peace Award conferred by Pallavi T, President of the Neeraja Universal Peace Foundation, India, September 21, 2021.
 2021:  Global Messenger of Peace Award conferred by
 2021:  The Symbol of Peace Award conferred by Kepeel Barsaiyan, President of Buddh Jyoti Foundation, India, September 21, 2021.
 2021:  Social Change and World Peace Award by Bhikkhu Pragyadeep, General Secretary of All India Bhikkhu Sangha, Bihar, India, September 30, 2021.
 2021:  Outstanding Contribution to Education Award by Acharya Norbu Sherpa, President of Nepal Buddhist Federation, September 20, 2021.
 2021:  Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Best Faculty Award 2021 conferred by Dr.Ratnakar D. Bala, President of Center for Professional Advancement Continuous Education - CPACE, India, September 5, 2021.
 2021:  Exemplary Covid-19 Social Work Award conferred by Bhikkhu Vinaybodhi, President, Mumbai Pradesh Bhikkhu Sangha, India, September 30, 2021.
 2021:  Best Leadership Award conferred by Chandrabhan Patil, President of The Buddhist Society of India, India, September 30, 2021.
 2021:  The Award for Mindful Educator conferred by Sulekhatai Kumbhare, President of Ogawa Society, September 30, 2021.
 2021:  World Teacher’s Day Award conferred by Prof.Ratnakar, Director of IMRF Institute of Higher Education & Research, October 5, 2021.

Vietnamese Government Awards and Recognitions
 2008:  Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Award conferred by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
 2014:  Vietnam Union of UNESCO Associations Award conferred by President of Vietnam Union of UNESCO Associations.
 2015:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM City conferred by President of Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM Cityon January 19, 2015
 2016:  HCM City People’s Committee Award conferred by President Nguyễn Thành Phong on November 3, 2016 .
 2016:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Tien Giang Province conferred by President of Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Tien Giang Provinceon January 12, 2016 .
 2017:  Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Award for Serving Buddhism and Nation conferred by Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on November 20, 2017 .
 2017:  Award of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front conferred by President on September 12, 2017 .
 2017:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM City conferred by President on February 20, 2017 .
 2017:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Tien Giang Province conferred by President on March 7, 2017 .
 2018:  Award of the People's Committee of District 10 conferred by President on November 20, 2018 .
 2018:  Award of the People's Committee of District 10 conferred by President on January 5, 2018 .
 2018:  Certificate of Merit from the Director of Blood Transfusion Hospital conferred by Director on November 26, 2018.
 2018:  Certificate of Merits for Good People – Good Deeds 2018 conferred by President on November 14, 2018 .
 2019:  Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Award for Excellent Education conferred by Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on September 17, 2019 .
 2019:  Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Award conferred by Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on November 11, 2019 .
 2019:  Minister of Health Award conferred by Health Minister Nguyễn Thị Kim Tiến on January 17, 2019 .
 2020:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM City conferred by President Tô Thị Bích Châu on July 1, 2020
 2021:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Nai Province conferred by President of Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Dong Nai Province on Sep 8, 2021.
 2021:  Award of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of HCM City conferred by President Tô Thị Bích Châu on Sep 10, 2020.

National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Awards
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award.
2007: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Award, term of office 2002-2007
2008: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012:  HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award
2012: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award, term of office 2007-2012
2012: Vietnam Buddhist University's Award
2013: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award for Buddhist Education
2013: Vietnam Guinness Record “The best Editor and publisher of Buddhist books”
2014: Vietnam Buddhist Research Institute's Outstanding Merit Award for Buddhist Education
2014: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award for Buddhist Culture Promotion
2014: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award.
2016: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award for Buddhist Culture Promotion.
2017: Vietnam Buddhist Research Institute's Outstanding Merit Award for Buddhist Research.
2017: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award for Buddhist Publication.
2017: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award for International Buddhist Affairs.
2017: HCMC Buddhist Sangha's Merit Award for Buddhist Culture Promotion.
2017: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award for Buddhist Education.
2017: National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Outstanding Merit Award for Dharma Propagation.

Promotion of the Buddhist culture
Since 2002, Thich Nhat Tu set up a Buddhist Music Club in Ho Chi Minh city, with the participation of many famous songwriters, singers and actors to propagate the Buddhist philosophy and practice for general public. He is the editor and publisher of more than 150 CD, VCD, DVD of Buddhist music since 2002.

Being a secretary general of Cultural Department, HCMC Buddhist Sangha (2002–2007) and chairman of the Cultural Department of HCMC Buddhist Sangha (since 2012), every year he organises many Buddhist cultural performances at Lan Anh theatre and Hoa Binh theatre. On top of that, many Buddhist exhibitions, calligraphy, and arts have been organised by him too.

He wrote Follow the Footsteps of the Buddha in India and Nepal, a book that bought the inspiration for the VTC1 Television to accompany him to India to make documentary film about Buddhist pilgrimage in India and Nepal.

Charity for the poor and jail inmates
He is an active social activist and charity fundraiser to help the poor, the old, children, homeless and those suffered from natural disasters, etc... He formed Buddhism Today Charity Group in 2000 to sponsor hundreds of eyes operation a year, donating to Social Support Centers, Retirement Houses, Orphanage Houses, Youth Education Centers, and cancer patients in many hospitals in Vietnam.

He has conducted meditation retreats for thousands of inmates in several rehabilitation facilities and correctional facilities in South Vietnam, such as Tan Hiep (1200 inmates), Chanh Phu Hoa (1000 inmates), Phu Nghia (400 inmates) and Ba Ria Vung Tau (800 inmates).

On February 5 and April 23, 2007, a total of 1850 “long-term” inmates of K.20 Prison, a security jail in Ben Tre Province, and on May 1, 2010, a total of 5500 inmates of Son Phu 4, Thai Nguyen city, under his guidance, have observed vegetarianism and mindfulness practice as a path to inner freedom.

The Buddhist Youth Club
He took part in the foundation of The Buddhist Youth Club in 2006. He promoted the youth activities in South Vietnam in 2010 in which there were 4,000 young Buddhists from 24 cities and provinces to participate in the Buddhist Summer Camp in Dai Nam Theme Park, Binh Duong Province.

Nowadays his model of Buddhist Youth Club has been applied by many provincial Buddhist Sanghas to propagate Buddhism and organise retreats for lay followers, as well as giving exam consultation every year.,

The Dhamma Door
In hundreds of his Dharma talks, Ven. Thich Nhat Tu urges monks, nuns, and lay people to practice the original teachings of the Buddha, in which The Four Noble Truths (sufferings, origin of sufferings, cessation of sufferings, and path leading to cessation of sufferings) and The Noble Eightfold Path are the central doctrine of all Buddhist traditions, a conceptual framework for all of Buddhist thoughts,  instead of being influenced by the Chinese Buddhism.

According to Ven Thich Nhat Tu, there is no such of 84,000 Dharma doors as stated by Chinese schools. In original Buddhism, there is no second Dharma door except threefold learning Discipline, Meditation, and Wisdom. Chinese Dharmas only focus on a few sutras, and tend to ignore all other teachings of the Buddha, as a consequence it is not comprehensive enough to help people cure sufferings completely. To him, 10 Dhamma Doors of China, 14 Dhamma Doors of Japan, and 4 of Tibet are only two parts of The Noble Eightfold Paths which are Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Dharma doors propagators have ignored Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort. That is why none of the Dharma Doors is comprehensive.

He urges Vietnamese Buddhist monks, nuns and lay followers to come back to the traditional Buddhism, maintain and propagate Vietnamese Buddhist culture in Vietnam, not to let it be influenced by Chinese traditions which have rooted in Vietnam in the past 2,000 years. He calls for a traditional Vietnamese chanting and writing. In Vietnam, all should be chanted and written in Vietnamese language so that everyone understands and follows the Buddha's teaching appropriately, as the full transition of Chinese tradition has deteriorated the initiatives and growth of Vietnamese Buddhism.

United Nations Day of Vesak 2008 and 2014 in Vietnam
The greatest contribution of Ven. Thich Nhat Tu to the public relation of Vietnam Buddhist Sangha is successfully calling for the celebration of UN Day of Vesak (UNDV) (United Nations Day of Vesak) 2008 and 2014 in Vietnam. As the deputy secretary of International Organising Committee (IOC) of United Nations Day of Vesak in Bangkok, he drafted the charter of UNDV, and introduced Le Manh That to IOC of UNDV. As a result, in late 2007, Le Manh That was appointed by IOC as chairman and Ven. Thich Nhat Tu as secretary general of UNDV in 2008, hosted by the Government of Vietnam at National Conference Center, Hanoi, Vietnam.

UNDV 2008 has attracted 550 Buddhist leaders and representatives from 78 countries to attend, while UNDV 2014 attended by 1100 international participants from 95 countries. In 2008, it was one of the 10 biggest events of the country, also a historical record in Vietnam.

UNDV in 2008 and 2014 proved an amazing spectacle of religious and spiritual festivity, with thousands of Buddhists from the world to spread Buddha's message of peace, love and harmony.

He successfully called for the celebration of World Buddhist Summit in Vietnam in 2010, in the Millennial Anniversary of Hanoi. Unfortunately, it was cancelled due to conflicted views between VN Buddhist Sangha and World Buddhist Summit Organisation. It is believed that Thich Nhat Tu is of Vietnamese Monks who has been able to being a bridge between National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and international Sanghas. Thanks to that VN Buddhist Sangha has gained its reputation internationally.

Thích Nhật Từ's Positions 2022-2027
 Standing member of Vietnam Buddhist Sangha's Executive Council, and Standing Vice Chairman of International Buddhist Affairs Vietnam Buddhist Sangha
 Standing Vice Rector of Vietnam Buddhist University, HCM city
 Vice Director of Vietnam Buddhist Search Institute, and General Editor of Vietnamese Tripitaka Translation project
 Vice Chairman of National Department of Buddhist Education
 Vice Chairman of Vietnam Buddhist Sangha of HCM City, and Chairman of Department of International Buddhist Affairs

Published works

English books
 Buddhist Soteriological Ethics: A Study of the Buddha’s Central Teachings. Sai Gon: Oriental Press, 2011.
 Inner Freedom: A Spiritual Journey for Jail Inmates. Hanoi: News Agency Press, 2008, 2011, 2014.
 Engaged Buddhism, Social Change and World Peace. Hanoi: Religion Press, 2014.
 United Nations Day of Vesak 2008. Hanoi: Religion Press, 2014.
 Buddhist Art: An Exhibition Celebrating UN Vesak 2014. Hanoi: Religion Press, 2014.

Books on applied Buddhism
 Pure Land Paradise: An Analysis of Amitabha Sutra.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2009. p. 142.
 Life after Death.  Saigon: Sai Gon Culture Press, 2010. p. 126.
 A Guide for Writing Research Paper.  Saigon: HCM Publishing House, 2003. p. 200.
 Understanding the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters.  Sai Gon: New Age Press, 2010. p. 499.
 Letting go for Freedom.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 87.
 Transformation of Emotion.  Saigon: New Age Press, 2010. p. 112.
 Understanding, Love and Sympathy.  Saigon: New Age Press, 2010. p. 174.
 Global Financial Crisis from a Buddhist Point of View.  Saigon: Hai Phong Press, 2009. p. 152.
 No Enemy: A Buddhist Approach to Peace.  Saigon: New Age Press, 2010. p. 121.
 Transformation of Anger.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 180.
 Facing the Death.  Saigon: New Age Press, 2010. p. 169.
 Turning Your Head, There Is a Shore.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 202.
 Happiness in Daily Life.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 194.
 A Peaceful Path.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 168.
 Happiness in Your Palms.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 149.
 A Pair of Sleeper: A Buddhist Approach to Happy Marriage.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2010. p. 178.
 Buddhism in Modern Era.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2011. p. 171.
 Happiness for the Elderly.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2011. p. 130.
 A Healthy and Happy Life.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2012. p. 124.
 Ten Important Things to be remembered.  Hanoi: Hong Duc Press, 2012. p. 128.
 14 Golden Teachings of the Buddha.  Hanoi: Hong Duc Press, 2012. p. 117.
 The Path to Transformation: Application of the Eightfold Path in Daily Life.  Hanoi: Hong Duc Press, 2012. p. 208.
 The Sutra on the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings: A Practical Approach.  Hanoi: Hong Duc Press, 2012. p. 194.
 Essence of Wisdom: A Practical Interpretation of the Heart Sutra.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2012. p. 266.
 Buddhist Thought Magazine,  editor. Saigon: 1991

Buddhist chanting books (translator)
 Buddhist Daily Chanting Book.   Hanoi: Religion Press, 1994, 2005, p. 992.
 Buddhist Ritual Book.  Saigon: The Oriental Press, 2011, p. 390.
 Kṣitigarbha Sutra.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2008, p. 154.
 Sutra on the last teachings of the Buddha.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2009, p. 62.
 Collection of Buddhist Mantras.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2010. p. 30.
 Gratitude to Parents Chanting Book.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2006. p. 62.
 Buddha Jayanti Chanting Book.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2006. p. 48.
 Buddhist Repentance Book.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2002. p. 52.
 Sutra on Amitabha Buddha.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2003.
 Buddhist Prayer for the Death.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2005. p. 68.
 Buddhist Prayer for the Disease.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2005. p. 40.
 Vesak Chanting Book.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2006.
 Metta Sutta and Mangala Sutta.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2009. p. 42.
 Buddhist Sutras for Beginners.  Hanoi: Hong Duc Publisher, 2013. p. 124.
 Buddhist Sutras for the Laity.  Hanoi: Religion Press, 2013. p. 980.

Vietnamese Buddhist music

PART I: BUDDHIST SONGS BY THEMES

I. SONGS ON "THE BUDDHA"
 Life of the Buddha (Cuộc đời đức Phật)
 Life of Shakyamuni Buddha (Cuộc đời đức Phật Thích-ca)
 Siddhartha's Birthday (Tất-đạt-đa đản sanh)
 Happy Buddha's Birthday (Mừng Phật đản sanh)
 Celebrating the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha (Mừng Phật vào đời)
 The story of Shakyamuni Buddha descending to earth (Chuyện Phật Thích-ca giáng trần)
 Siddhartha the Buddha (Đức Phật Thích-ca)
 In search of the truth that saves all beings (Đi tìm chân lý cứu muôn loài)
 Siddhartha renunciation (Tất-đạt-đa xuất gia)
 Song of the enlightenment (Tất-đạt-đa xuất gia)
 Celebrate Buddhahood (Mừng Phật thành đạo)
 The Three Insights of the Buddha (Ba tuệ giác của Phật)
 The Buddha turned the Dharma Wheel (Đức Phật chuyển pháp luân)
 Buddha’s turning the Dharma Wheel for saving all beings (Phật chuyển pháp luân độ đời)
 Buddha’s loving kindness (Tình thương của Phật)
 Buddha’s boundless mind (Tâm Phật vô biên)
 Buddha saves humanity (Đức Phật cứu nhân loại)
 Refuge in Buddha (Con nương tựa Phật)
 I follow the Buddha’s truth (Con theo chân lý Phật)
 Buddha Truth (chân lý Phật)
 Wisdom of Buddha (Trí tuệ của Phật)
 Buddha’s passing away (Tưởng niệm đức Phật niết-bàn)

II. SONGS ON "FOLLOWING THE BUDDHA'S FOOTSTEPS"
 1. The Buddha within you (Có Phật trong con)
 2. The Buddha’s path (Con đường của Phật)
 3. Meeting with Buddha through incarnations (Con gặp Phật qua các hóa thân)
 4. Being a Vietnamese Buddhist (Con là Phật tử Việt Nam)
 5. Following the Buddha (Con theo Phật)
 6. Looking and Meeting the Buddha (Con tìm Phật và gặp Phật)
 7. Be enlightened by the Buddha (Được Phật dẫn đường soi sáng)
 8. Take refuge in the Triple Gem (Nương tựa Phật Pháp Tăng)
 9. Buddha's grace loves you (Ơn Phật thương con)
 10. Buddha guides my life (Phật dìu dắt đời con)
 11. The Dharma enlightens my life (Phật pháp soi sáng đời con)
 12. Blessed may I meet the Buddha (Phúc cho con gặp Phật)
 13. Thank the Buddha for embracing Buddhism (Tạ ơn Phật cho con gặp đạo vàng)
 14. I go looking for me (Tôi đi tìm tôi)
 15. I met the Buddha in three sinking seven floats (Tôi gặp Phật trong ba chìm bảy nổi)
 16. Because the Buddha loves me (Vì Phật thương con)
 17. Innocent Novices (Chú tiểu hồn nhiên)
 18. I follow Buddha to save humanity  (Con theo Phật cứu đời)
 19. Kathina offering (Dâng y cúng dường)
 20. Offering Kathina to Sangha (Dâng y Kathina)
 21. Buddhism (Đạo Phật)
 22. Follow the Master's example  (Noi gương thầy)
 23. Buddha's grace chose me (Ơn Phật đã chọn con)
 24. Hingly divine grace (Ơn thiêng cao ngất)
 25. Live spiritually in the daily life (Sống đạo giữa đời thường)
 26. Follow in the footsteps of Buddha (Theo dấu chân Phật)
 27. Why follow Buddha (Vì sao theo Phật)
 28. May Buddha give me (Xin Phật cho con)
 29. Head shaving and ordination (Xuống tóc xuất gia)

References

External links

Pháp thoại của Thầy Thích Nhật Từ
Ven. Nhat Tu's profile (Vài nét về thầy Thích Nhật Từ)
Ven. Nhat Tu's Selected writings on Buddhism Today website (Các tác phẩm của Tỳ Kheo Thích Nhật Từ trên trang Đạo Phật Ngày Nay)
Ven. Nhat Tu's Buddhism Today website (Tỳ Kheo Thích Nhật Từ biên tập trang Đạo Phật Ngày Nay)
Ven. Nhat Tu's Dharma Talks in Vietnamese (Trang Tủ Sách Phật Học: Đại Tạng Kinh Việt Nam và pháp thoại MP3của Tỳ kheo Thích Nhật Từ biên tập)
Ven. Nhat Tu's on http://quangduc.com (Tỳ Kheo Thích Nhật Từ trên trang Quảng Đức)

1969 births
Living people
21st-century Buddhist monks
Buddhist pacifists
Scholars of Buddhism
Buddhist translators
People from Ho Chi Minh City
Nonviolence advocates
Thiền Buddhists
Vietnamese academics
Vietnamese Buddhist missionaries
Vietnamese Buddhist monks
20th-century Buddhist monks
Vietnamese pacifists
Vietnamese translators
Vietnamese Zen Buddhists
Zen Buddhist monks
Missionary linguists


Li Jie (born 6 March 1984 in Chengdu, Sichuan) is a Chinese-born Dutch women table tennis player who now represents the Netherlands.

She was born in Chengdu, and resides in Den Helder. She currently plays for Spanish team Club Cartagena.

Career highlights

Olympic Games
2008, Beijing, team competition, 9th
2012, London, team competition, 5th
2008, Beijing and 2012, London, women's singles, round of sixteen
World Championships
2015, Suzhou, women's doubles, semi-final
2008, Guangzhou, team competition, 7th
2014, Tokyo, team competition, 5th
2011, Rotterdam and 2015, Suzhou, women's singles, round of sixteen
European Championships
2008, St. Petersburg, team competition, winner
2009, Stuttgart, team competition, winner
2011, Gdansk-Sopot, team competition, winner
European Games
2015, Baku, women's singles, runner-up
2015, Baku, team competition, runner-up
Pro Tour Meetings
2007, Velenje, women's doubles, semi final
2007, Stockholm, women's doubles, quarter final
2008, Velenje, women's doubles, winner
2008, Santiago, women's singles, quarter final
2008, Santiago, women's doubles, semi final
2008, Yokohama, team competition, 5th
2008, Daejeon, women's doubles, semi final
2008, Shanghai, women's doubles, semi final
2008, Salzburg, women's singles, semi final
2010, Velenje, women's doubles, runner-up
2010, New Delhi, women's doubles, runner-up
2014, Almeria, women's doubles, semi final

References
 2008 Olympic profile
 ITTF Profile

Notes

External links

1984 births
Living people
Chinese emigrants to the Netherlands
Dutch female table tennis players
Olympic table tennis players for the Netherlands
Sportspeople from Chengdu
Table tennis players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 2016 Summer Olympics
European Games silver medalists for the Netherlands
Table tennis players at the 2015 European Games
Table tennis players from Sichuan
Naturalised table tennis players
World Table Tennis Championships medalists
Naturalised citizens of the Netherlands
European Games medalists in table tennis
Table tennis players at the 2019 European Games


The huge moth family Noctuidae contains the following genera:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Quadratala
Quandara
Quaramia

References

 Natural History Museum Lepidoptera genus database

Noctuid genera Q


Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing is a basic human need, and it plays a critical role in shaping the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities.

Overview
Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it is a home or some kind of physical structure for dwelling, lodging or shelter and it includes a range of options from apartments and houses to temporary shelters and emergency accommodations. Access to safe, affordable, and stable housing is essential for a person's health, safety, and well-being. Housing can also impact a person's economic, social, and cultural opportunities, as it influences their access to education, employment, healthcare, and social networks. In many countries, housing policies and programs have been developed to address issues related to affordability, quality, and availability, and to ensure that everyone has access to decent housing. Some have one or more housing authorities, sometimes also called a housing ministry or housing department.

In general there are two types of housing, market housing and non-market housing. While market housing consists of apartments, condominiums, private housing, etc. Non-market housing consists of public, social, and cooperative housing among others. Market housing refers to housing that is bought and sold on the open market, with prices and rents determined by supply and demand. This type of housing is typically owned by private individuals or corporations, and the rental rates are determined by the landlord based on the local market conditions. Non-market housing, on the other hand, refers to housing that is provided and managed by the government or non-profit organizations, with the goal of providing affordable housing options to individuals or families with low to moderate incomes. This type of housing is typically subsidized, meaning that the rent is lower than the market rate, and tenants may be eligible for rent assistance programs.

History

United States of America
In the United States, it was not until the 19th and 20th century that there was a lot more government involvement in housing. It was mainly aimed at helping those who were poor in the community. Public housing provides help and assistance to those who are poor and mainly low-income earners. A study report shows that there are many individuals living in public housing. There are over 1.2 million families or households. These types of housing were built mainly to provide people, mainly those who are low-income and elderly, with safe, affordable, and good housing units.

With regards to the history of housing, there are studies that prove that the involvement of the government began in 1937, and it was "under the United States Housing Act". The goal was to improve many things such as all of the unsafe, unsanitary, and terrible housing conditions which connect to the issue of affordable housing. In 1940, there was development, and there was an Office of Housing expenditures. Later on, in the years, another housing act took place in 1956, and in 1960, there was recognition of rights which was considered to be a "huge turning point for public housing". Many of the policies created back then tend to be still active nowadays.

From that time until now, public housing has been increasing. In the 1980s, there were many public housing individuals and tenants who lived in many different areas, particularly those areas that were segregated. Some years later, a new program was created, and it caused many people to be relocated. This is similar to what we have today, where people are repositioned. Back then, the program was called Hope VI.

Moving forward to the 2000s, the problem of finding affordable housing started to increase, leading United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to start taking action and helping out many homeowners, individuals, agencies, and communities in order to find affordable housing. When counting, there are over nine hundred thousand participants in this program. Throughout the years after there had been an increase in housing prices then they tend to go down after a year, this was occurring in 2005, and it sure is occurring today, nowadays there are such high prices on houses. In 2008, an act did take place called the "Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008" and this act "strengthened and modernized the regulation of...(government-sponsored enterprises) and the Federal Home Loan Banks"  From 2013 to 2017, there were contributions occurring; for example, there was the LIHTC which although a source on the outside, did help out with HUD and provide many different funds which helped out with public housing, especially with their capital needs. From 2000 until 2019, inflation dropped because of all of the public housing funds. Nowadays affordable housing is a huge problem for so many families, and this is up by about ten to fifteen percent since 2018 because of the increase in prices.

Macroeconomy and housing price
Previous research has shown that housing price is affected by the macroeconomy. Research from 2018 indicates that a 1% increase in the Consumer Price Index leads to a $3,559,715 increase in housing prices and raises the property price per square foot by $119.3387. Money Supply (M2) has a positive relationship with housing prices. As M2 increased by one unit, housing prices rose by 0.0618 in a study conducted in Hong Kong. When there is a 1% increase in the best lending rate, housing prices drop by between $18,237.26 and $28,681.17 in the HAC model. Mortgage repayments lead to a rise in the discount window base rate. A 1% rise in the rate leads to a $14,314.69 drop in housing prices, and an average selling price drop of $585,335.50. As the US real interest rate increases, the interest rates in Hong Kong must follow, increasing mortgage repayments. When there is a 1% increase in the US real interest rate, the property prices decrease from $9302.845 to $4957.274, and saleable area drops by $4.955206 and $14.01284. When there is a 1% rise in overnight Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate, the housing prices drop to about 3455.529, and the price per ft2 will drop by $187.3119.

Effect on health
Housing is recognized as a social determinant of health. Lack of housing or poor-quality housing can negatively affect an individual's physical and mental health. Housing attributes that negatively affect physical health include dampness, mold, inadequate heating, and overcrowding. Mental health is also affected by inadequate heating, overcrowding, dampness, and mold, as well as lack of personal space. Instability in housing can negatively affect mental health. Housing can affect the health of children through exposure to asthma triggers or lead, and through injuries due to structural deficiencies (e.g. lack of window guards or radiator covers).

See also

 Affordable housing
 :Category:Housing ministries
 Housing association; there are many articles on specific named housing associations
 Housing estate
 Housing First
 Housing in the United Kingdom
 Housing in Japan
 Informal housing
 Informal sector
 List of housing statutes
 List of human habitation forms
 Right to housing
 Subsidized housing
 US Federal Housing Administration

References

External links

  house for sale in toronot


The first ten Revenue Service cutters were ten oceangoing cutters built at the behest of the 1st United States Congress in the early 1790s to crack down on smuggling. Since the United States Navy had at the time not yet been formed (it was established in 1798), these ten cutters of the newly formed Revenue Marine therefore represent the United States Government's first official "armed force afloat", as well as being the first seagoing vessels to operate with what would later become the United States Coast Guard.

Need for the Revenue Service
Immediately after the American Revolutionary War the newly established United States was struggling to stay financially afloat. National income was desperately needed, and a great deal of this income came from import tariffs. Because of rampant smuggling, the need was immediate for strong enforcement of tariff laws, and on August 4, 1790 the United States Congress, urged on by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, created the Revenue-Marine, later renamed Revenue Cutter Service in 1862. It would be the responsibility of the new Revenue-Marine to enforce the tariff and all other maritime laws.

Earlier revenue vessels
There were a number of vessels that served on an "ad hoc" basis as revenue boats in the period prior to Congress' authorization to build the ten cutters. Some were operated by the various states during the Confederation Period while others were operated by the federally appointed customs collectors in the ports after the formation of the government in 1789. These "federal" revenue boats and craft varied in type and size, such as Philadelphia collector Sharp Delany's "barge with sails," that served before, during, and well after the General Green entered service in the waters around Philadelphia. But such craft were not seagoing vessels capable of sailing well away from a protected harbor, as the cutters were specifically designed to do.

Duties of the Revenue cutters
Although little documentation exists regarding any of the first ten cutters' activities - most of the correspondence and logbooks from the era were destroyed by fire when the British Army burned Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 and another fire in the Treasury Department in 1833 - these government vessels undoubtedly carried out a myriad of tasks. Many of these duties were spelled out in letters from the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, to the various collectors of customs, who were in direct charge of the cutters and their crews. The duties specifically assigned to the cutters and their crews as legislated by Congress and expounded by Hamilton included:

Boarding incoming and outgoing vessels and checking their papers (ownership, registration, admeasurement, manifests, etc.);
Ensuring that all cargoes were properly documented;
Sealing the cargo holds of incoming vessels;
Seizing those vessels in violation of the law.

They were also tasked with a number of other duties that were not related to protecting the revenue. These included:

Enforcing quarantine restrictions established by the federal, state or local governments;
Charting the local coastline;
Enforcing the neutrality and embargo acts;
Carrying official (and unofficial) passengers;
Carrying supplies to lighthouse stations;
Other duties as assigned by the collector.

Their primary purpose, however, was to protect the revenue of the United States by deterring smuggling. That meant sailing out of the port to which they were assigned and intercepting vessels before they came too close to the shore. It was here, well out of the harbor but within sight of the coast, that smugglers unloaded part of their cargoes into smaller "coaster" vessels or directly onshore to avoid customs duties. The collectors usually had smaller boats that could check vessels as they sailed into port. Therefore, these ten cutters were not harbor vessels; they were designed to sail out to sea, survive in heavy weather, and sail swiftly so that they might overtake most merchant vessels. They were the United States' first line of defense against attempts to circumvent duties, the major source of income during this period.

Footnotes

References
US Coast Guard Historian's Office
The first ten cutters, US Coast Guard website.
USRC Scammel, 1791, US Coast Guard website.

United States Revenue Cutter Service
+First ten Revenue Service cutters
+First ten Revenue Service cutters


Pila Fifita (born 13 June 1975 in Viliame Fifita) is a rugby union player who has represented Tonga, including one cap during the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He also played two seasons for the New Zealand Divisional 15. He plays as a winger.

North Otago
Pila Fifita debuted for North Otago in 2000. He along with most of his teammates suffered losses in his first two seasons the worst being in 2001 in the NPC final, but he enjoyed success in 2002 when he was a main part of the NPC 3rd Division winning team. 2002 was a great year for fifita, scoring a convincing 15 tries for the season including three hat-tricks, the best coming in the final against Horowhenua-Kapita making him the first person out of any of the NPC divisions to score three tries in a NPC final. He ended up scoring 79 points for the season. Fifita played many matches for North Otago the last coming at the end of the 2005 season, he was a stand out player in the union and he was arguerably one of North Otago's greatest and most valuarable players.

Saracens
After playing for North Otago Fifita signed a deal with European club Saracens in 2004. The Saracens head coach Rod Kafer said "We have been looking to get the correct balance and variety in our back line and we feel Pila will provide that.
He's a very powerful player who can break the gain line and carry the ball in an uncompromising way. We've cast the net far and wide in order to get the balance in our squad." So Fifita joined his new side after his last season for North Otago.

Fukuoka Sanix Blues
After playing a couple of seasons in Europe for Saracens he went to play for the Japanese club Fukuoka Sanix Blues in the Top League. He is currently still playing for the Fukuoka Sanix Blues.

Tonga
In 2003 after playing impressive matches for North Otago in 2002 and 2003, Pila Fifita was called into the Tongan rugby world cup squad to replace Aisea Havili after he withdrew because of a leg injury. North Otago chief executive Ian Patterson said Fifita's selection was exciting for the province. "We're absolutely thrilled for Pila. He's had a very strong couple of seasons and it's great for him to get this reward.
"He's a major part of our team and we will miss him". Fifita got to play one match in the 2003 rugby world cup on October 29 against Canada. In 2005 Fifita was again called into the Tongan rugby team but like in 2003 he only played one match.

Griffith Uni Colleges Knights
As of January 2018 Fifita is currently a member of the Griffith Uni Colleges Knights in the Gold Coast District Rugby Union Competition on the Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.

Notes

Living people
1975 births
Tonga international rugby union players
North Otago rugby union players
Tongan rugby union players
Tongan expatriate rugby union players
Expatriate rugby union players in France
Expatriate rugby union players in Japan
Expatriate rugby union players in New Zealand
Tongan expatriate sportspeople in France
Tongan expatriate sportspeople in Japan
Tongan expatriate sportspeople in New Zealand
Rugby union wings
2003 Rugby World Cup players


The National Women's Monument () in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is a monument commemorating the roughly 27,000 Boer women and children who died in British concentration camps during the Second Boer War.  The Monument is a Provincial Heritage Site in the Free State.

The monument was designed by a Pretoria architect, Frans Soff, and the sculpting by Anton van Wouw.  It consists of an obelisk about 35m in height and low, semi-circular walls on two sides. A central bronze group, sketched by Emily Hobhouse and  depicting her own experience of 15 May 1901, is of two sorrowing women and a dying child in the Springfontein camp. The monument was unveiled on 16 December 1913, attended by about 20,000 South Africans. Thirteen years later, Emily Hobhouse's ashes were ensconced at the foot of the monument. Also beside the monument are the graves of Christiaan de Wet, Rev. John Daniel Kestell, President of the Orange Free State Martinus Steyn, and his wife.

Origins
The idea of a monument was expressed by Martinus Steyn, then president of the Orange Free State Republic, whilst receiving medical treatment in Europe after the Boer War. His wife, Rachel Isabella "Tibbie" Steyn, played a part in the concept, having family members and associates who had died in the British concentration camps. She also had close ties with Emily Hobhouse. On his return to South Africa, Steyn set up an action committee to launch the project. The notion of constructing a school or hospital was rejected as lacking inspiration, a view which gained support from a number of Afrikaner organizations.

£10,000 of funding for the monument came from the Afrikaner community over a period of four years from 1907 to 1911. The start of construction was delayed by English-speaking members of the Bloemfontein Town Council, who felt the memorial would reflect poorly on Great Britain and by extension on the locals who had supported the war.

Prime Minister Louis Botha, who had embarked on a mission of reconciliation after the war, also disapproved of the memorial. This also lead to accusations made that the monument was built, broken down and rebuilt.

Location
The monument is around 3 km south of central Bloemfontein. Against the backdrop of the surrounding hills, the monument blends in well to the local farm community and therefore to the Boer lifestyle memorialized there.

Description
A circular shelter (screen wall) around 35 m high surrounds the central obelisk.

Sculpture group
The sculpture group includes a woman without her bonnet, with her emaciated, dying child in her lap. A second woman goes to the distance, calling on the Lord to see the tragedy.

The inspiration for the scene was described in a poignant way by Hobhouse, referring to a scene in Springfontein where a woman would not look at her starving child, experiencing a pain beyond all tears. A second message comes from the child's eyes: her child is dead, but her willpower is not dead and her people is not extinct.

Hobhouse (a woman of many talents) did not hold Van Wouw in high regard as a sculptor and spoke critically of the final product. She held that images did not do justice to the pitiful scene portrayed, feeling the child looks asleep rather than at death's door.

Significance
The Women's Monument enjoyed great popularity, but was eventually overshadowed by the Voortrekker Monument, erected 36 years later in Pretoria on December 16, 1949, as a national symbol. The Voortrekker Monument came a year after the victory of the National Party in the 1948 South African general election and coincided with the centennial of the Great Trek. In contrast, the controversy surrounding the Women's Monument delayed its recognition on a national scale.

School use of the monument
The students of C&N Sekondêre Meisieskool Oranje ("C&N Girls' Secondary School Orange") in Bloemfontein visit the school annually in memory of president Steyn and its historical significance. The visit is a 10-km hike from the school to the monument. Wreaths are laid by Steyn's grave, and several ceremonies are held as students pledge to develop the potential of their Afrikaner, Christian heritage.

Later embellishments
The aesthetic scope of the monument widened over time. Initially, no men were depicted, but with the burial of Steyn at the foot of the structure, a new era of commemorations began, eventually bringing a war memorial into the area. Tibbie Steyn expressed concern that the use of the grounds of the monument for burials of war veterans would dilute the original focus on the suffering of women and children. Despite her protestations, she was buried in 1955 alongside her husband by Dr. D. F. Malan, a year after having retired as Prime Minister of South Africa. Malan declared her the last link to the original Boer Republics. Since 1960, other memorials of the Second Boer War have been erected on the Women's Monument grounds, making the monument one of the primary sites dedicated to the war's legacy. Cultural institutions used surrounding plots of land to commemorate civilians, volunteers, POWs, and Bittereinders. While complementary to the Women's Monument, they confirmed the shift in emphasis.

Nearby institutions
The Anglo-Boer War Museum is permanently located on the same premises.

Graves by the monument
 Mathinus Theunis Steyn, 1916
 Emily Hobhouse, 1926
 Christiaan De Wet, 1922
  JD (Vader) Kestell, 1941
 , 1955

Gallery

References

Bibliography
 Grundlingh, Albert. "The National Women's Monument. The Making and Mutation of Meaning in Afrikaner Memory of the South African War." Cuthbertson, Gregor; Grundlingh, Albert M.; and Suttie, Mary-Lynn (Hrsg.). Writing a Wider War. Rethinking Gender, Race, and Identity in the South African War, 1899–1902. Athens, Ohio:Ohio University Press. 2002. pp. 18–36.
 Marschall, Sabine. Serving Male Agendas. Two National Women's Monuments in South Africa. Women's Studies 33 (2004). pp. 1009–1033.

External links

The National Women's Monument:Albert Grundlingh
Photograph of the National Women's Monument, Springfountein concentration camp page, De Camps Courant website

Second Boer War memorials in South Africa
South African heritage sites
1916 sculptures
Bronze sculptures in South Africa
Statues in South Africa
Monuments and memorials to women
Anton van Wouw
Obelisks in South Africa


Irina Kotikhina (born 17 December 1980 in Gorky, Soviet Union) is a Russian professional table tennis player.

Career highlights

World Championships
2001, Osaka, women's singles, last 128
2001, Osaka, team competition, 23rd
2006, Bremen, team competition, 13th
2007, Zagreb, women's singles, last 64
2007, Zagreb, women's doubles, last 32
2007, Zagreb, mixed doubles, last 128
Pro Tour Meetings
2005, St. Petersburg, women's singles, runner-up
2006, St. Petersburg, women's doubles, quarter final
2007, St. Petersburg, women's doubles, quarter final
2008, Velenje, women's singles, semi final
2008, Velenje, women's doubles, winner
European Championships
2007, Belgrade, women's singles, semi final
2007, Belgrade, mixed doubles, quarter final
2007, Belgrade, team competition, 2nd
European Youth Championships
1995, The Hague, women's doubles, runner-up  (cadet)
1995, The Hague, team competition, 1st  (cadet)
1998, Norcia, team competition, 1st  (junior)

External links
 ITTF stats by player

Russian female table tennis players
Living people
Table tennis players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Olympic table tennis players for Russia
1980 births
Sportspeople from Nizhny Novgorod